Thursday, January 15, 2009

Cast on no. 2


I'm starting with this photo for a few reasons. First, it shows Brody smiling. Second, look at the little GQ leg-cross. He's posing at age 2. Sure, I take 10 photos of him a day, so he has been forced to learn to pose, but still. The leg cross. My boy.

We went back to the ortho for our two-week cast change. Again, we're trying to stretch the soft tissue before surgery January 28. As soon as the cast came off, his hand went from 180 (straight) to around 130 degrees. It was 90 degrees to start with, completely perpendicular to the wrist, so I suppose that is an improvement.

This hand has always been so much tighter and less functional than his left hand though, including the utterly failed straightening/centralization surgery last May.

I'm worried.

I'm worried this upcoming surgery will be another failure, except it's not just the wrist, it's the thumb this time too. Well, the soon-to-be-thumb. I suppose every club hand is different, but the kids I've seen so far have had more like Brody's left hand. I've never seen or heard of fingers that don't bend. He can move his right hand fingers, sort of, but he has nowhere near the grip on the right that he has on his left. And the fingers look different. They curve. They actually look curved. It's the soft tissue doing it. It's not on the x-rays. Great, now I'm rambling.

Back to the appointment. Brody had a purple cast, which he loved dearly. He was fairly terrified of the cast saw (even though we called it a tickle robot- Brody saw through that lie). So once we got the cast off, and Brody insisted on spending 15 minutes with that arm being soaped under running under water (I don't blame him), the PA Kevin decided he could use a softer cast, that won't require a cast saw to remove. The only difference is, the softer cast comes in one color: white.

Enter the glitter.

While the cast was still wet, the PA presents us with a shoebox-size container of 20 different little bottles of glitter. Brody picked his favorites. First, purple. Then, green. It looked quite good. Like Wimbledon. Then, a medium lavender shade. Then, hot pink. The PA said he's never had a kid who picked so many colors. And he's never seen a more sparkly cast. Brody was quite pleased. The PA also put a cast on Brody's baby. And gave me the roll of purple cast material in case (a) Brody wanted the purple cast back, and/or (b) another baby, monkey, elmo, cookie monster needed to be casted too.

After the appointment, in the hall outside, I made Brody pose with Baby for photos. He kept moving though, so I had to keep taking photos. Brody became annoyed. Which is when he finally stood still, and I got a good photo of both Brody and his Baby.


I think he looks like a sullen teenager here. But I still like the photo. We got back to the car, I gave him a box of animal crackers which he ate while I drove him back to school. Then he fell asleep. The guilt was gnawing at me, that he had to go to daycare at all today, especially after the tears from the saw and trauma of it all. He cried when I told him he had to go to school.

I walked with him into school, and decided in my head that I would stay with him for 15-20 minutes before I went back to work. We walked into his class. The teacher was about to read a story. Brody and the other mini-people sat down at the miniature table. Then Brody turns to me and says, "Bye mommy."

I got dismissed by my 2 year old.

7 comments:

Shannon said...

Gosh he is just the cutest thing EVER!!! I can totally see what he will look like as a teenager in that photo...too cute.

SaRaH said...

Seriously. The leg cross? Brody is cool to the core. We'll be here with you praying and hoping for the best possible outcomes for his surgery. Until he rocks that surgery, he'll just have to keep rocking glitter.

Jacque said...

Love the photos, and that the baby has a cast too. So cute. I hope the surgery goes well. Praying for Super Brody!

Alina Klein said...

Love that boy and his glittery cast. He's a tough little trendsetter. I LOVE the leg cross.

Surgery smurgery says Superbrody. Piece of cake.

(I'll be praying!)

Anonymous said...

A glitter cast? How awesome is that? Makes me want to break a bone. Okay maybe not.

Benji's doll has all the same "parts" and surgeries as him. So neat that his baby does to.

As for the dismissal- at least you haven't had your child tell you yet- "Mom, don't interupt- I'm texting". Of course when Brody does that it will go well with the leg cross! Lori

Dawna Rockey said...

Christine,

So I showed Benjamin the picture of Brody's cast and he was so excited. We were working on saying Brody, but Ben can't say to the B because of his facial paralysis. So he calls him "Dough-Dee" How cute is that.

Unknown said...

Sometimes when I go to pick Rylie up at daycare she says, "Go away, mommy. I'm playing with my friends." LOL. Teenagers in the bodies of two-year-olds.

Brody is the bomb.