Casts away!

Yesterday we took L for his first serial leg casting appointment. I barely slept a wink the night before, I think I eventually closed my eyes at around 4am. I did some googling of the casting while I was roaming the house. I've seen a cast go on before, but I was interested as to how they would prepare his legs if at all, whether it was going to hurt, how uncomfortable it was going to be for him.

After worrying myself into a ridiculous state I did manage to get some sleep. His appointment was at 2pm so the Mister and I collected him and H from school early and set off for the hospital. We headed to the Fracture Clinic and waited, before being called in by L's physio, Grace.

Grace sat L in the chair in the plaster room and explained everything. I was really impressed by their treatment of him, they explained everything step by step, showed him all of the tools they would use and explained how everything worked. While they were doing that, Grace was stretching his legs and feet and he was so busy absorbing all the information about his casts that he barely noticed she was even doing anything, it was punctuated by the occasional "ouch" but mostly he was too busy watching all that was going on around him to be too distressed about it.

He was really made to feel like he was taking part in the whole process instead of it just being done TO him. They got him some gloves so that he could touch the plaster as it was being applied, and told him how it worked. They will re-cast every week for the next 4-6 weeks, adjusting the angle of his foot gradually to stretch and lengthen the hamstrings so that eventually he should be able to walk flat footed. He will have to continue exercises and also wear some supportive orthotic shoes (he's had orthotic boots before which were to help him walk flat footed, unfortunately they didn't work as hoped, which is why we had to move on to serial leg casting) once the casting is complete.

By the end, both of his little legs from the knee to the toe were clad in plaster. He has boots to go on to the bottom that attach with velcro and have a little wedge of felt to support his feet until they are adjusted down some more in the coming weeks. Right now he is a little uncomfortable which is of course understandable, and he is using different muscles which is a little painful for him, but so far so good. He is being SO brave.

We've bought him some thermal socks to wear over the top of his casts, and today some of his friends signed his casts and it's all quite a novelty at the moment... We'll see how things are in a few weeks!