Fredriqua

I remember when they were buying the McMansions. They kept talking about these houses like the houses would make them into different people. But almost from the moment they moved in, there was clutter everywhere. I never understood this. It's not like the film crew pops by unannounced. Why don't they clean up? So much else about this show is manufactured for the cameras. Why start "reality" with the messy houses? I think they are slobs, will always be slobs, getting new huge houses didn't change them.

The thing to keep in mind is, they are constantly improving surgical techniques. Spinal fusion now is different than it was 20 or even 10 years ago. It's still a very hard surgery with risks and potential complications, but if you find a good surgeon who has done a lot of them, at a good children's hospital with a good orthopedics department, your odds of a positive outcome go way up. The Browns have resources for other stuff. Living in denial and hoping the voodoo works on such a drastic curve is only going to make it harder when they finally do the surgery. The younger the kid, the quicker the recovery, usually. The longer they wait, the worse it is. Around the same time my daughter was diagnosed, one of her friends was too. The friend's mom was hardcore against surgery and took her girl to the chiropractor three times per week for over a year. (Lucky for them, they could afford to pay out of pocket. Our insurance wouldn't cover chiropractic treatments for scoliosis...BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK.) After all that fooling around and all the time and money wasted, the poor girl ended up having surgery anyway, a year and a half after my daughter had had hers. Friend's recovery was harder and since she was older and taking more advanced classes, missing school was harder too. I will stop obsessing over the scoliosis now. It's just that it hits close to home for me.

Haven't even finished reading all 5 pages of comments, but I gotta weigh in here! When my daughter was diagnosed with scoliosis, we were freaked out. My first reaction was "Never Surgery." I don't like medical interventions and do think that for a lot of conditions, it's good to start smaller. My instinct for my daughter was to look into exercise and chiropractic. HOWEVER, I quickly learned that despite what so many chiropractors claim, there is literally ZERO hard evidence that anything other than surgery works. Think about it. Chiropractors love them some X-rays. You go to a chiropractor and you will get X-rays. Yet somehow, for all the cases of scoliosis they have supposedly cured, they got NO X-ray proof? None? After realizing this, I concluded time was of the essence. My daughter is a strong-willed badass, and I know not every kid is like her, but we never worried about "an ugly scar" or anything like that. Come on! Having a straight spine and no curve crushing her lungs was more important. My girl came through the surgery like a champ, was home in 3 days, wanted to go back to school after a week (but we didn't let her). Her scar healed up pretty good. A couple years later she had a great dress for prom and wore her scar with pride. She did what it took to get better. The Browns drive me batty for a lot of reasons, but this ignorance of theirsfor poor Ysabel tops the list now.

New here, had to create an account to talk about my favorite hate-watch/train wreck! When I was watching Meri and Janelle's interactions on this episode, it struck me that their relationship has probably always been so bad because that's how Meri got attention from Kody. She'd set herself up as Janelle's victim. I bet from the earliest times, she'd point out all the ways Janelle was mean to her. It was how she could gain Kody's sympathies and lord it over Janelle.