Flying with the brace

We recently returned from a wonderful trip to visit family.  We had great fun reconnecting with aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, grandparents, and friends.

This was our first time flying with the brace.

The plan was to have Dancer Girl take it off to go through security so there would be no embarrassing beeps and possible searches or questioning.

Then she was going to put it back on to board the flight and wear it on the plane.

That didn't last long.

The seats are too uncomfortable, the aisles too narrow, the maneuvering in and out of spots too difficult. Being quite tall she is already lacking extra comfort space on an airplane, especially if the person in front of her reclines their seat.

Off it came and it was stowed in a bag in the overhead compartment.

We had two fairly short flights plus customs so she would have had to take it on & off multiple times for security and getting on & off planes.  Perhaps on a longer flight she could have figured out how to make it work but the thought of changing in and out of it in short succession was daunting.  In the end we opted to have her not wear it on the plane and to wear it when she arrived, but after the initial hugs and hellos.

I think the hardest part about having it along on vacation was the unpredictable schedule - sudden outdoor activities like a beach day or two, horseback riding, playgrounds, etc. that are not brace friendly were quite common.

She did wear it every night and whenever we weren't out so in the end she got a good number of hours in every day.

Now we are back home and can relax until things gear up for the fall so she can get back into a regular routine for the brace.

Out of town

Soon we will be heading out of town for our first trial of wearing the brace on a flight.

The plan is to have it in a carry-on bag through security, then Dancer Girl will put it on to board the plane (so we don't have too many carry on items) and see how it goes in flight.

She plans to bring a small pillow to help with positioning on the flight but if the seats prove to be unbearably uncomfortable she may opt to take the brace off.  As long as she wears it the rest of the day she could get away with not wearing it on our flights.  But, wearing it in flight will give her some relief time from it when we first arrive at our destination.

We are flying to visit family so the initial moments of arrival will involve plenty of greetings and lots of hugging which will be nicer for Dancer Girl if she is not in the brace.  (See our "Can I have a Real Hug?" post).

We will update the blog on our return - (there will be fewer posts for a couple of weeks while we are away unless we get some good computer access time).

At camp without the Boston brace

Dancer Girl is away at camp in New Hampshire this week WITHOUT HER BRACE!

She is thrilled to get the break from it for a few days and be able to fully enjoy the camp experience.

Her back doctor said that because the correction in the brace is so significant (50%!) he thought she could go without it for the week.

The activities at camp would make it hard to wear much during the day anyway and nights are short so it would be good for her to get some real sleep if possible. That hasn't been happening consistently in the brace and camp beds are not going to make it any easier!

She was thrilled to meet her counselor who is also tall - "finally I am not taller than my counselor"! - and who understands the frustrations of being the tallest in the group.

It gets tiring to hear people exclaim "you are so tall!" everywhere you go.  Not that people mean anything negative by it, it is just an observation and it is true, but it gets tiring nonetheless.

The counselor also seemed to have an understanding of scoliosis. It wasn't clear to me at drop-off if she has dealt with it herself or is just aware of it on some level but still, this was encouraging for Dancer Girl too.

We are looking forward to hearing how camp week went when we pick her up on Saturday and are praying that her back will not cause her too much pain during her time there.

On Vacation With a Boston Brace

Our family recently spent a week in a cabin on a lake up in New Hampshire.  It was wonderfully relaxing with no set schedule.  We spent the days in canoes & kayaks or on inflatable rafts in the water. A few tried some swimming but the water was COLD!

We rode our bikes, found some great ice cream, and took a day trip to Gunstock Mountain to take in their high ropes course and zip lines. We had too many s'mores for too many nights in a row.

The hard part was figuring out how the brace fit into all of this activity.

Because things changed day to day, hour to hour, Dancer Girl was in & out of it much more than usual which got tiring for her emotionally.

She also found it very difficult to sleep on the beds in the cabin while wearing the brace even though we brought some of her extra pillows, and her bedroom was hot.

While we tried to keep it on as much as possible I found it harder to enforce on vacation and we almost certainly never reached the 18 hour per day goal.

It was our first week of summer vacation at the time and so it was hard to figure out a new routine. Now I think we have settled into one, more or less, but that will change as camps and vacations come up over the next few weeks.

For this vacation we drove to our destination but there is a trip involving a flight coming up at the end of the summer.  Travel by air with the brace will be a new adventure...