Progressing Excellently

Yesterday we were off to the hospital again to see how Matthew arm was progressing, to make sure the bones had not shifted and discuss further options of whether to put a short cast on, or a fiberglass cast , or keep the same cast. Originally I had wanted to put a short cast on because I thought that the full cast would hinder him from doing things. But then I had decided against this when I heard that the problem with these is kids pull them off ... and Matthew has already tugged at his current cast and proclaimed "stuck". So I thought maybe a fiberglass cast would be nice as it would be much lighter and easier for him to tug along. But ... as the last 10 days went by I realize that he was not the least bit hindered by the current cast so I was fine with just leaving it on if that was the decision they thought was best.

So off we went for an x-ray and appointment. Upon seeing the doctor he asked how long the cast had been on ... and then double checked with me to make sure I was sure that it had not yet been two weeks. Yes I was sure!! Apparently his arm has healed excellently and if he were a careful adult they would even consider taking the cast off at this stage. But since he's not such a careful little guy (as pictures further down will show) they would leave it on for another 10 days and then it would be well healed and ready to come off. So a total 3.5 weeks and it should come off ... that's pretty much half the time we expected. Now to be fair they did say 4-6 weeks, but I automatically just went with 6 weeks figuring I rather not be disappointed if it doesn't come off early.

So ... we're already halfway done with the cast ... and it has not hindered Matthew in the least. Matthew's little feet still go too fast for the rest of his body but his falls result in bigger oweees because we have discovered that his cast is the perfect pivot to send his face scrapping along the ground. The cast is made strong (he told me he put an extra layer of plaster on as he figured it would be needed) and thankfully hasn't broken from any of Matthew's landings on them but his poor face has some war wounds to show for his careless feet.

I decided that it would be much easier to wipe Matthew down and keep him clean if I gave him his summer haircut a bit early (much to Rob's disapproval). In the end I'm not sure it was such a good idea as cleaning up hair shavings requires showering or washing ... so in the end I'm not saving much hassle and avoidance of water ... and short hair has to be cut more often. But now that his cast is coming off earlier then expect we should be able to leave his hair until the cast comes off. We also discovered that it really wasn't that hard to shower him down since we have a removable shower head ... but I like the short hair so it works for me, and in between spray-downs it is much easier to wipe down a head of short hair.

Before and After

We ran into further problms when cutting his hair because I was not so bright and did it while his hair was dry (duh, just a blond moment). This meant hair all over ... not so bad ... until you look at the second picture and see what he's doing.

For some reason his tongue came out ... not sure if there was already hair on it that made this problem. But since he had hair on his tongue he used his hand to try wipe it off ... and his hand was under the cape ... so cape full of hair to wipe hair off tongue ... yah, not working so well. Needless to say we had a crying, unhappy boy through a good part of the process.

Almost done! We did stop part way through to try clean up his mouth ... but it was only a short-term help ... he seemed obsessed with putting his tongue out.

When we seen the doctor yesterday he said we no longer have to use a sling. Matthew was very cooperative with the sling. There were times were he would take it off and I had to pin it shut to keep it on ... but after a few days of that he just accepted that it's suppose to be on and on it stayed. He was quite excited yesterday when we removed the sling and told him he didn't have to wear it anymore.

This did make meal time a bit more difficult as now his arm wasn't protected from food by the sling and nicely tucked by his body under his big. But we quickly figured out a fix for this by cutting the end off a sock and covering his cast with that. Now he has a cast bib!!

Supper last night with Matthew wearing a mask that Marietta made for a play they did at school. He is also wearing his cast bib ... which we have since modified to include a plastic bag first and then a sock over the bag in order to keep him from dipping his fingers (and cast) in his food.