Every six months my youngest daughter is seen by her pediatric orthopedic doctor to evaluate her bone tumors. 14 months ago my then 3 year old had just broken her arm. One day in the car I turned around and noticed a large bump with no bruise on her inner right knee. A quick call to the pediatrician got us an appointment later that afternoon. We saw a sub ped and her first reaction was "wow I have no idea what that is wow". So reassuring to a mom who is thinking a cancerous lump has grown overnight on her baby's knee. She orders blood work and an x ray. So we are off to radiology and then lab. At 5pm that night we get "the call". I must admit that until the doctor called I think I was holding my breath. Her first words were that she was 99% sure they knew what we were dealing with. Her diagnosis was osteo chondroma. A benign bone tumor. She referred us out to a pediatric orthopedic, the same one treating her broken arm. Turns out it wasn't just an osteo chondroma but multiple osteo chondroma or Multiple Hereditary Exostosis (although the hereditary part mystifies us). Over her bones my little girl has about 16 of these tumors. Our biggest concern is over the original one found in her knee, after a MRI it was found to be attached to the growth plate making surgical removal too risky. There are 6 tumors in her right knee. The original and biggest is causing her hamstring to "twang" over it every time she moves her knee. At her last appointment in July I had noticed she was pronating her right foot. Upon examination it was found that she was indeed pronating, probably to ease the discomfort of the bothered hamstring. But we are ordering additional x rays of her hips to rule out those tumors causing the pronation. So here we are 14 months post diagnosis. She has visited the ortho every 6 months, undergone numerous x rays including a full body set of x rays, and a sedated mri of the right knee. We shall see if the tumor has slid off the growth plate. X rays will determine that as well as whether or not the hip tumors are causing rotation of the leg. Update on Tuesday.
It is so much fun! The kids loved testing the beds. John and I got a rundown on the systems while the crew hitched our truck up for us. We pulled out of there a few hours later and settled ourselves and Indian Lake State Park just a few miles from the dealer for our shakedown night. 
And what a shakedown night it was. We unhitched and ran to Walmart to stock up on trailer supplies. Got back had some dinner and set up camp. First order of business was to install our state map. We had debated as a family what would constitute putting the state sticker on. choices were a.) if we drove in it and actually got out and set foot in it
Then the rain came and came and came. Only one minor leak and we think it had to do with how the zippers were positioned on the boys bed. But for the amount of rain we got we were dry and toasty.
pitol was a set of bronze statues depicting the "Little Rock 9" A group of black students who enter
ed Central High School when it was desegregated. After circling the grounds we were off in search of Central High school National Historic Site. We located it with ease and were the only ones in the memorabilia museum. We learned that all 9 are still alive and were present at the 50 year celebration. The school is still functioning today as a magnet charter school. It is a gorgeous school which has undergone some landscaping upgrades.
and stopped at the welcome center. We have found these to be an invaluable source of information (and bathrooms). This one had a playground with a jumpy seesaw. Avery got her first souvenir, a bruised chin from the seesaw. We continued on to Little Rock our first scheduled hotel night. After checking in we headed for the riverfront which looked to have been recently redone. There was a fabulous park that was 4 months old that the kids clamoured on for awhile. 
It had a long slide that dumped below ground into a series of short tunnels that offered rock walls to climb back up. Luckily the kids stuck together because it was a mothers worst nightmare trying to find them all in the various tunnels.
This is a shot of the reading couch and three of the kids desks. I got the desks for $10 each at the local ISD surplus shop. A can of black matte spray paint later and they looked great. The chairs are IKEA.
