No Cast and Leg Fittings

I was almost concerned that Joseph would refuse to accompany me to his Phila visit this AM. He was so worried that it would hurt to take off the cast and that there would be blood.
Well this is what he saw when they removed the cast. Pic is a bit light...but no blood, just some dried out wrinkled skin.  The Dr's were so happy with his results...he is going to need to do the work from here on out.  Splint at night, and work the wrist during the day. I was a bit surprised we aren't doing PT, but we will see how "mom PT" goes. If we have too many crying evenings like tonite, I will be requesting PT by a professional.
 Thumb is still not in the right position, so we have another stint with the fixator in our future, but we will see if we can arrange it after next summer so that he can go swimming.

Then on to some socket fittings for his legs. He was cast 4 weeks ago and they were ready to try on the sockets. They temporarily attached the feet to see how they feel.

I have a video of him walking but it is sideways and I don't know how to right it! He did pretty  well and didn't use his favorite 4-letter word too often...(hurt)
Now we get to pick out some cool fabric to do the outside of his legs. I sort of talked him into it when I told him he can go to the fabric store and pick out whatever. (maybe I'd better clarify "whatever")  Maybe he will pick "skin" after all.

Progress!

Today we did a run to Philadelphia...to see the Doctors....not sure how
many we saw today...but anyway first the good news. The fixator will be
history in about 2-3 weeks....well as soon as the appointment can get
squeezed in there. Oh and the plastic surgeon said he does not think we
need to graft YAAY!
This-a mama is ready to get rid of that thing...there might be a
certain 11 y.o. boy that thinks the same thing.
The other half of the visit was good, but we aren't quite as far along
as I'd hoped....the incision looks great...the swelling is down...but
not quite far enough...the prothesist (the people that make the
prosthesis) was just not sure that his swelling was down as good as it
could be and rather than make legs that are too big...we are wearing
compression socks/tubes for about 2 weeks then see how he looks.
The let down came this evening...we were talking about touching his legs
and getting them ready for legs...the skin can't be too sensitive and he
was groaning and moaning...didn't want to wear the compression socks to
bed ( I can understand) He also decided that he could not walk today
because his calf muscle was "hurting" the proper adjective never did get
decided upon. Was it achey because he walked too much yesterday
(probable)...or was the muscle torn from the tendon (not
likely)....really could not get a finger on exactly what was going
on...but it was BAD!
Anyway, daddy had a little chat about trying not to let pain rule you
and helping us figure out how to help him....
along the way I asked if he ever had someone that pushed him to move
ahead to work hard at a goal...
"yes a teacher (ayi) in the orphanage"
I asked him what he thinks she would say if today she could see the
choices ahead of him....
on one side...don't try...keep crawling...stay in wheelchair...because
it hurts to work
OR
work with mom and dad and doctors...do the exercises...toughen the
skin....move the muscles so that he can play basketball with his
brother...walk and run with his classmates.
That upset him...I do it a lot these days....
but he got me back he said...
"that is why I didn't want to come to America...all the surgeries"
I bit my tongue for awhile...then asked him who the kid was that crawled
by me the other day and lifted his fixator arm and said..."even though
this was hard, I would tell other kids it was worth it."
"Not me" was his answer.

The New Shoes

Casts are OFF!

We made the trip to Philly today. Tomorrow marks 3 weeks from his
amputation surgery. They took off the casts with a minimum of fuss.
Thanks to Ezekiel who found a Mr P*tato head and was very entertaining.
After they removed the gauze he fearfully took a look and then "Cool!"
He was very pleased with the results as were his doctors. He was
expecting lots of blood and pain as they took off the bandages (the arm
was worse)
The doctor decided that the stitches look good enough to keep the casts
off....may start putting weight on them...and best of all
He had a shower tonite and could get all of him wet AT THE SAME TIME!
It has been awhile.
They added extensions to his fixator...now he is actually armed and
dangerous...gotta get pictures of that!
Then to top off the good feelings of tonite, he proceeded to scratch his
knee "it ITCHES!!!" and did not want me to put on lotion to soothe the
itch. Almost had a perfectly good day!
Ah well, we will try again tomorrow.

New Feet!

Yesterday I reminded Joseph that he won't be going to school today and he was disappointed until he remembered that it was "new feet day". Let the pictures tell you the results....of course my battery only lasted for 3 shots ! but the pictures tell it...after some initial adjustments he loved them. Now I do know they will take some getting used to there are some pressure spots, but he stands so much straighter!   The down-side? He needs to learn how to get up again if he falls. So that will be fun to teach and .. They made him stand 5' 3" and he really should be more like 4'11" not sure why but it makes him a bit of a smart alec! he is only one inch shorter than mom.   Thankfully when he went on his rant about his haircut tonite, he had his feet off and I could talk to him as the little boy he actually is. I met another bloggy mom today, so neat! Anna, praying for your family tonite.