SPMLs & EtOH

So about that abbreviation: You don’t has to call it SPMLIHGROwSEPFD. You can call it Johnny. You can call it Ronny. OK, sorry, no more burlesque. To truly understand what we are doing you should read the other books on our book shelf. These books are hugely redundant on purpose as we are essentially teaching a new CP language. Start with Mud. Then skim through the SACH-SAWCH book. It details why feet should never be our limitation. Absolute wildly extreme worse case: amputate & prosthesis. Prosthetics work fine. Seriously, that was done not that long ago. It was sought after by patients who didn’t want to be sidelined by feet that would not behave as feet should. Interesting but more importantly instructive. With misbehaving feet, we can attain prosthetic type (‘SACH’) foot function using ‘percs’ or SPML in high gain SPMLIHGROwSEPFDs even for – especially for – some of the nastiest situations you can imagine. These examples are as horrifying to the surgeon as they are to you – but even more so as complications with standard surgical methods are horrific.

This is a 12 yo girl who walked in staggering fashion unassisted, having athetoid CP – a nightmare for surgeons as athetoid patients respond to surgery unpredictably and badly. For no reason that we could pin down, her legs clamped together and she could no longer

stand, let alone walk. On the 12 th we see two adductor emg bars go full height as someone tries to coax her knees apart. No go. Next day, she had ethanol focal dysmyelination (we didn’t call it that back then) and three days later she could abduct & adduct with supple ease (& walk).