Knitting in the Shadows: Knitting for Recovery

The other day, I posted about my discontent with our school system.

Today, my post is actually inspired by something wonderful that my children have had the opportunity to experience in our school system.

You see, here in ShadowLand we are, among other things, a Band Family. I'm a Band Mom. My kids are Band Kids. And that's because we've been blessed with truly awesome band teachers -- both in Middle School and now in High School. In our High School, it's not just a class. It's a Band Family.

I'm willing to believe that part of what makes our Band a Family Band is that we have awesome Band Moms and Band Dads. But another key part of what makes our Band a Family Band is that we have a wonderful couple who are our Band Directors. Mr. and Mrs. C. are amazing teachers, brilliant music coaches, inspiring directors... (I could go on and on, but that's not really the point of this post).

Since we're a Band Family, we stick together. And now it's time for us to support the Band Directors' actual family: their lovely daughter has a congential condition that means that one side of her body is bigger than the other. It's mostly okay, but it's troublesome in a number of ways. One of those ways is that one leg is several inches shorter than the other.

As a massage therapist, I can tell you that a simple imbalance from leg length differences can lead to all sorts of discomfort. It affects your gait, your posture, and strains various muscles in your back as they try to accommodate the difference.

One "treatment" for leg length differences is to put lifts on shoes. That helps a little, but doesn't solve the problem. Even with lifts, the discrpancy in the angles at which the legs work while walking can cause problems.

Another treatment that actually solves the problem is a scary sort of surgery. In this surgery, they break the leg bone(s) and then put on a halo device that includes some rings around the leg, and some pins into the leg. That device has little crank like things on it, which get turned daily, slowly slowly pulling the bone apart at about the same rate that the body builds new bone to heal the break. This sounds midieval, but it's actually pretty amazing. It induces the body to build new bone until the leg is the length it should have been!

Thanks to the amazing folks at the Shriner's Children's Hospital, our extended family member will have legs of equal length by next summer!

Very cool, but with a bit of a wardrobe issue. Pants do NOT fit over this multi-halo leg brace. This means that an adorable 9 year old girl will be stuck for months (including November, December, January, and likely February) without being able to wear pants. Not good. And so, the Band Family is kicking in, and some of us are knitting leg warmers. This means that at least ONE leg can be warm most of the time.

As you can well imagine, I signed up right away. Last week, another Band Mom handed me a skein of yarn so that I could use it for a leg warmer or two. I immediately knit this:

I gave the leg warmer to Mr. C. when I was at the school for Parent Teacher Conferences, and then I went home to knit this:

With luck, one of those sets of button holes is at the right place to allow the dear child to put that around her thigh, above the halo. At least the top of that leg will be warm.

Since then, I also knit this.

And then I wrote up the design. It's very easy, but I know that not everyone can just cast on and knit and have things work. I thought I'd put this design out there for a token charge as a bit of a fund raiser for the Shriners' Children's Hospitals. I'm going to donate every dollar I receive for this design. Won't you help me help other children get the miracles they need? You can purchase your copy for $1.00 on Ravelry . Order as many as you like, every dollar will go to the Shriners.