5 weeks later

Just a progress report below. His dad is taking him for a follow-up visit next week. He was supposed to have one last week, but through no fault of his doctor, the people who schedule appointments at the annex near our house overbooked as usual and so we couldn’t get in to see the doctor.

I have every expectation he’ll be as good as new at some point. The time frame we were originally given was to expect it to be another 16-18 weeks after the cast came off before he was 100% back to normal.

We’re at a little over 5 weeks right now. Here’s a quick video I shot this evening of him running toward me. As you can see, his “run” is more like a “gallop” which is due to the stiffness in his leg still.

http://www.youtube.com/v/y97wrx7fDE0

x-ray recap

A copy of the x-rays came in the mail today.

Here is one from the day he broke his leg:

Here’s one from a week after he was in the spica cast:

Here’s one after he had been in the cast for a month:

And I think I’ve shown this one before – after 8 1/2 weeks, the day his cast came off:

3 week post cast-off

I have been videotaping him each week on Monday so this is a little outdated, but at 3 weeks after his cast came off, he is trying to run.

http://www.youtube.com/v/_evzMCoy5Fs

best day ever

Great. Now I have that Sponge Bob song stuck in my head.

Anyway…….

I was so excited to see how well he did yesterday! It was definitely a huge breakthrough day for him.

I have set my alarm every day this week for 4:30am to get up and run. This morning was pretty typical; it was 5:07am and I didn’t hear the alarm for the umpteenth time, but I did hear someone saying rather loudly “how many times are you going to hit snooze on that alarm???”

That’s pretty much a recap of my running this week. I have no excuses for Saturday morning though!

Mr. Sun came up and he smiled at me,
He said it’s gonna be a good one just wait and see,
‘Jumped out of bed, feeling so extra exctatified,
It’s the best day ever!
It’s the best day ever!

full day

I didn’t get a call to pick up a 4-year old all day long. The phone rang several times, mostly when I couldn’t readily answer it so I was sure each time it was pre-school calling to say he’d had enough for one day.

But they didn’t. I picked him up after I wrapped up a call for work this afternoon and when I got there, he was walking around on the playground, just like he’s done so many times. If I didn’t know better, it might have even been a typical, ordinary day.

He colored. He played with blocks. He ate lunch and took a nap and hugged all of his friends. But none of it happened in our house; it was down the street where I couldn’t see or hear him, but knew he was safe in someone else’s hands.

Can I stop holding my breath yet?

http://www.youtube.com/v/fNARrhU1hpI

trial basis

I guess I’ll find out soon enough if I made the right decision. Yesterday afternoon, I took the 4-year old back to pre-school and met with the director and assistant director. We assessed his ability to get around in class, and on the playground, using the bathroom, etc.

Today marks the first day he’s been back in class since he broke his leg – 2 days shy of 10 weeks. I told them better to be safe than sorry, if he’s getting tired, cranky, complaining of pain or just needs some extra time to adjust to let me know and I’ll go pick him up.

Maybe he’ll make it through the whole day. Maybe I’ll be there by 10am.

This feels like the first day of kindergarten felt when I shipped my oldest off to school.

1 week later

I’m multi-tasking (and if anyone wants to help me catch up on work, just let me know). One week after the cast came off, I think a video tells the story best as to his progress.

http://www.youtube.com/v/HPZg4Bj6XrU

He can stand upright for a few moments. He occasionally will take a few steps but prefers to crab crawl; not a problem as the walking is obviously going to happen at some point.

I do have a concern with his toes pointing out to the right when he does walk, so I called his doctor to get a referral for physical therapy (TCH has an annex with physical therapy 5 minutes from our house). They generally give the patients 2 weeks to work things out so it may be another week before I can get the orders written for physical therapy but we’ll wait and see how it goes.

Here’s my lesson of the week. Be patient. Learn to manage expectations (for the adults as well as children).

toenails

Remember how I mentioned that I couldn’t trim his toenails because the cast extended so far past them that I couldn’t reach them?

His progress is about the same as it’s been since Wednesday – walking with someone holding one or both of his hands but preferring to scoot on the floor like a crab to get anywhere.

walking 1 handed

http://www.youtube.com/v/H36ZtIHwloI

comments

As far as his walking goes…it is definitely our expectation that he will walk normally again. Right now he has little muscle control but it’s coming back. He has dreamed of being a baseball player his entire 4 year life; some days I think all he talks about is the Astros and his dream to play baseball with Lance Berkman. I don’t think that’s going to happen since his growth plate has likely been affected and he was already treated at TCH for height and weight issues before this happened..

I need to convince him being a horse jockey is an admirable profession!

The first day it took him 9 hours after the cast was off before he did anything, and that was to scoot.

The second day he wanted to walk everywhere for brief periods of time as long as I held on to both hands above his head – literally toddling, just like a toddler – side to side.

Yesterday he stood in front of me just learning to balance for seconds at a time while not holding on to anything. And a few times we took short walks with me holding on to just his right hand. Karen made a good point that until he’s really steady on his feet, we need someone near him whenever he’s on his feet.

Cassie, did I ever tell the story here about my mom? She said it was amazing she had all those kids and none of us ever had a broken bone. I told her I thought it was amazing she had all those kids and none of us ever had a tattoo! LOL!