Josephine “Josie” Lueck Josie Lueck

Josephine Ida is the most resilient child you could ever be so blessed to know. She has overcome many, many obstacles to be where she is today.

When she was born with a condition called hypotonia, which is a state of low muscle tone and muscle weakness, and has been a hurdle for Josie in many ways including her development and ability to walk. After Josie started standing independently then walking, we noticed she had an abnormal gait (the way she walks) and the way she stood on her feet seemed like she was rolling to the outside of her feet. She started working with PM&R and we were given stretching, range of motion, and other therapeutic exercises to help improve. After the foot shape continued to change with no noticeable improvement from the intervention we were providing they put Josie into SMOs, ankle high braces, to support her ankles and try to redirect the foot position. She was beginning to get large calluses and some breakdown on her foot so we changed course. PM&R referred us to pediatric orthopedics and together they determined her next course of action would be serial casting.
Serial casting is where her feet were stretched to a certain angle then put into casts for 2 weeks then the casts were taken off, the angle adjusted, new casts were put on, repeat. With the casts on we saw Josie had the ability to walk very quickly and even run at times. After the casts were removed, we noticed improvement with her range of motion. Josie changed to AFOs, a knee high brace, and we saw improvement in stability. However, now that everything was stretched and loose, even inside the brace, her roll to the outside of her foot was getting more severe, more rapidly. She has Bilateral Cavovarus feet. We participated in a gait analysis, saw a muscular neurologist, and it was concluded her next intervention would need to be surgical. We were going to do this surgery in April of 2020 but with the pandemic, we chose to hold off until we had a more stable idea of what was going on and how to handle a surgery during such an event. We continued to monitor and see her doctors and after further imaging and another gait lab it was determined in February that the time had come to proceed. Now that protocols have been established and Gillette has a very strong handle on their Covid process, Josie has been scheduled for her surgery on Thursday, April 22 at Gillette Children’s in St. Paul. She will be undergoing bilateral foot reconstruction including soft tissue work, reforming the heel and tendon transfers. The surgery will last approximately 5 hours and she will be recovering for 5 days in the hospital.

Josie is a beautiful, happy, strong resilient child. She will have a lengthy recovery process but she is a hard worker and will come out the other side of this stronger than ever. Please pray for a safe surgery, wisdom for her medical team, and a strong tolerance for our sweet girl.

We thank all of you for the love and support for our entire family. We will keep you updated as she progresses through the process.

All our love,
Sarah & Michael • Ben & Denise
Emma, Maddie, Josie, Ava, & Genevieve