“Sister Wives” star Maddie Brown Brush has given fans an update on her baby girl’s health.
Brown Brush took to Instagram last week to reveal that her 1-year-old daughter, Evangalynn “Evie” Kodi, has had her foot amputated.
Posting a photo with Evie from the hospital, Brown Brush explained, “Evie received some major gifts for her 1st birthday. Her surgeon laid the groundwork for her new foot and mobility it will bring, by way of a boyd amputation. Another gave her some extra mobility in her hand, by clipping her webbing she had in her right hand.”
Little Evie has been diagnosed with fibular aplasia, tibial campomelia and oligosyndactyly (FATCO) syndrome, a very rare genetic disorder affecting bone formation in utero.
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When Evie arrived on Aug. 20, 2019, the reality star and her husband Caleb Brush quickly noticed the newborn was missing a thumb and a toe, and one leg was short a fibula (i.e., a calf bone) and had a bowed tibia (shinbone).
In addition, two of their little girl’s fingers were merged together.
“We were shocked,” said Brown Brush, who is also the mother of son Axel James, 2. “I was just sitting there trying to comprehend what’s going on, having just had a baby as they are bringing in all these specialists. I was freaking out.”
Concluding her post, Brown Brush told fans that the tot was now on the mend and “recovering beautifully.”
She followed up a week later in another post, insisting that the decision to amputate was not something that she and her husband took lightly.
“I understand the questions and at first glance, I would ask the same thing,” she wrote in response to comments from her followers. “Evie’s left Tibia bone, along with the bowing it had, was also about a 1/3 shorter than her right. When she’s little it’s not super noticeable unless closely looked at. As she grows though, we were looking at the possibility of a dramatic difference,” she explained.
“This was not a light-hearted decision,” she wrote, noting that the couple “spent the better part of the last year educating ourselves, talking to doctors, prosthetists, other families, and other amputees as we came to the decision we did,” she wrote, explaining that lengthening the limb would require “four major surgeries and the possibility of having to amputate in the end,” leading them to choose a Boyd amputation.
She concluded by writing, “Sometimes it’s about quality of life. Due to this, I wanted to give a more in-depth explanation and answer all at once. I hope it will all bring awareness to a part of the #limbdifference world.”
