It's Off (Sean Update)

Almost two weeks ago Sean got his cast. The first day with it he didn't move much at all and we realized that this would probably be a very LONG two weeks. The next day he learned to scoot on his bottom around the room with his leg out in front of him. And by the following day he was crawling on all fours and eventually he learned to pull to standing and walk around the room (looking much like a pirate with a peg-leg) and even go up and down the stairs. The most difficult thing about Sean's cast was not being able to give him a bath and wash off (properly) the sunscreen and other things that manage to find their ways onto the body of an active (even with a cast) 20 month old. We did manage to keep him away from sand and water, but he was outside which meant his foot got quite dirty (up into his cast) and with all his movement his cast (the cotton part underneath) was starting to come undone making the top of his foot bleed a bit. I decided to call on Tuesday (after the holiday) in hopes to have them fix the cast or (better yet) take the thing off a few days early.
They decided to take it off, do an x-ray and see what would happen (especially considering that he was walking all over the place in his cast). I was so thrilled about this. Sean however was not. Taking his cast off (as they warned me) was much more traumatic than putting it on (even though when putting it on his leg was in a a lot of pain). I have never heard him scream the way he did and once he heard the saw (he didn't need to even see it) there was no calming him down. He also screamed through the x-rays and I worried a bit that his leg may still be hurt but since he was screaming just with the sound of the saw, I figured (and hoped) he was just scared. I managed to calm him a bit and even touched his leg very gently without him wincing in pain. It was no longer swollen and looked normal and (surprisingly) clean. When the doctors came in, he started to whimper and cry and when they touched his leg- ever so gently- he screamed out again in a voice I had never heard which was very difficult to console even with my standard "Jesus loves you this I know" that I sing and have sung to all of my babies throughout their lives.

The x-rays looked good so they let me take him without putting on another cast and told me that he may limp a while (a week or two) until he got used to walking again on it.

That seemed strange to me but sure enough, he acted as if he was still in pain (though we could touch his leg without him screaming). When he finally did start to move it was much like the way he started with the cast... first scooting, then crawling and finally pulling up to stand. Taking three small steps holding on to a coffee table had him screaming and I worried that we had made a mistake taking off his cast too soon.

Thankfully we didn't rush him back to the hospital and by the next day he was starting to walk around a bit (albeit with a serious limp). He still walks like he has a peg leg and I do wonder when that will stop.

I saved his cast (I don't know why really) and hope that this will be the LAST cast that will be put on one of my kiddos. I am also hoping that the limp will be gone soon. Sean seems happy though and that first night he spent some serious time in perhaps his favorite place in the house... the bathtub!