The Savage family

I added a link to the right to the Savage family’s blog whose son broke his leg September 8th.

Five

I added a link to the right for “And Now There are Five” – their daughter broke her leg.

Deanna’s corner

I added a link to the right for Deanna’s corner whose son is in a spica cast.

8 weeks after the cast

It’s too bad the resolution on YouTube is so diminished; this is actually taken in HD but you’d never know it.  Regardless of the quality, here is a quick clip of him taken 8 weeks after his cast was taken off.

 

I was on the phone with my brother this morning, just chatting. We talked about that I had gone on an early morning run near my house, while he went for a walk near his. The conversation switched to friends from our hometown, family, etc.

A few minutes later he asked “how’s the walking going?”. I was confused; we had already talked about his walk this morning. No, he meant our son who 8 weeks earlier was in a spica cast. I told him the 8 weeks with the cast off following the 8 1/2 weeks that he had it on just flew by.

It’s not something that comes up in a regular conversation any more; I’m happy to say that most days it’s just a topic of something that happened in his past.

why I did…

Hey Melissa!

I had so many people asking questions specifically about broken legs and spica casts that I finally decided it would be easier just to put all my posts in one nice neat place – here.  It’s probably much easier for anyone who’s doing a search (because I’m pretty sure they don’t care about my running!).

He’s going to gymnastics tomorrow; it will only be his second time back.  He is so excited!  Part of me wants to say no way but the teachers all know what his situation is and the doctor assured us it was perfectly okay.  So we’re trusting all of them, which makes him happy!

down the stairs

One thing that happened this week (7 weeks after the cast in case you’re counting) is for the first time, he didn’t ask to be carried downstairs this morning.

Our typical morning routine involves me waking him up, escorting him to the bathroom, getting his teeth brushed and clean clothes on – and then downstairs to join the rest of the family (he’s the last one up).

Start to finish, that routine takes 5-10 minutes.  His legs haven’t typically had much of a chance to stretch out and is a bit unsure of his steps first thing in the morning.

Instead, this week he didn’t ask…and I didn’t offer…to carry him down the stairs.  He just trotted off on his own, just like he always used to do. 

6 1/2 weeks later

Just an update on his running.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpiIINujwFM 

follow up

It’s a good thing we ended up making our 1 month follow up with another doctor.  The short story is his staff way overbooked him for our original 1 month post cast off appointment.

I left and came home to book another appointment at the main location in the medical center; the first appointment was at the annex close to our house (which is known to always overbook but I forgot since the last time we used the annex was a couple of years ago).

His rescheduled 1 month appointment was supposed to be this week, which would be more like 6 weeks later but his dad scheduled a follow-up with another doctor last week.    So his 4 week appointment ended up being at 5 weeks with another doctor.

I kept the rescheduled one with his original orthopedic doctor though, which was supposed to be this week.  I had a phone call today that they had to cancel it because he needs to be in surgery so they gave me the next available appointment – July 7th.

Which would be more like 10 or 11 weeks for what was originally supposed to be 4 weeks.

My take-away on that is 2 things.  Glad we rescheduled with another doctor so we could have the follow-up x-rays done and know that he’s on track.  And two, apparently the 1 month follow-up isn’t as crucial or they would’ve fit us in before then.

It all worked out at least.

it IS shorter!

Pony, you are one smart woman. I sure learned a thing or two today (just a reminder, our family had no broken bones when I was growing up, or since then so I know nothing about them except our recent adventure).

Turns out, his right leg is a bit shorter.

On purpose!

When the guys came home from the doctor’s appointment and he told me they had set it shorter on purpose, it was a “WHAT ON EARTH FOR???” shout heard ’round the world.

Turns out broken bones grow much faster than non-broken bones, so they set it shorter – on purpose – so they’ll end up the same after a year’s time. Aspiring basketball players, don’t try this trick on both legs; it’s not worth it.

This was a different doctor than the one we had been seeing, but he backed up with words what the first one did with action – assured my husband that this was actually standard procedure.

The boy is thrilled to be cleared to go back to gymnastics finally! He got a written note from the doctor (my insistence) so all is well with the world.

pins

Pony, I completely get what you’re saying; actually it’s a question we get a lot – did the break affect his overall height (probably, because it affected his growth plate), will one leg end up being shorter (not expected at his age since he’s still growing), and why didn’t they set it in pins (usually done with children over the age of 6 or over 100 pounds).

The reason it looks shorter is because he still has some stiffness in it, particularly first thing in the morning (just like adults when your joints feel swollen and sore after a long run the day before), as well as late in the evening after he’s had a lot of activity.

Stiffness in joints is caused by inactivity, and although for most of us that’s after the course of 8 hours’ sleep, in his case he still has some stiffness from over 2 months of not moving any of those joints – not just the femur that he broke, but that whole thing of the hip bone’s connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone’s connected to the knee bone, etc.

That children’s song really has some basis behind it – they are all connected, and since all of the bones were immobilized by the spica cast (sacrum – hip, femur – thigh, patella – knee, tibula, fibula – lower leg bones) all the surrounding joints are still stiff, not just the joints surrounding the broken bone.

Sometimes I forget who I’ve told what to, but we were told to expect the recovery to be roughly double the weeks he was in a cast; so it realistically may be mid-August or so before there’s not the noticeable limp. I should know a lot more after he has his follow-up appointment this week though.