The ups and downs of casts

I thought I would talk a little bit about Fionn's casts today and how they affect our day to day life.  These are little details that would have been nice to know before but learning on the go is just as good i guess.  In terms of mobility, he is pretty good at getting himself around.  The first week in casts was fantastic.  He had no problems walking in his special cast shoes(more on them later) and pretty much kept up to his normal pre-casting pace.  We are in week two of casting and this week he's not too keen on walking.  Not sure if it's just the sore that's bothering him, the position of his feet this week, maybe the casts are tighter, or possibly all of the above.  In any case, he's constantly asking me to pick him up because it hurts to much to walk.  His wheel chair doesn't fit in our car so we only really use it to go for walks around our neighbourhood.  I keep a stroller in the car though so that's useful.  The trouble with the stroller though, is that he's already a heavy kid and now with the casts he's even heavier so it's hard to navigate with the stroller... it's not so easy going.  But we do what we can with what we have.  He also crawls around if I'm not around to pick him up.  I have a few pairs of big wolly man socks around so I keep those on his feet since it's still chilly these days and it helps him no slip so easily on the floor.  They also help hold his shoes on better.

As for the cast shoes.  They are annoying to say the least.  Because his casts are not a perfect 90 degree angle, they tend to fall off quite frequently.  We tried buying crocs and cutting them to fit but those were a bust.  They didn't stay on and were even worse then the cast shoes.  In the house he doesn't wear them and the fiberglass top coat seems to be pretty sturdy.

As I may have mentioned already, excuse my redundancy, this week his casts are causing him to bruise.  Mostly on one leg but still enough to cause some slight discomfort.  I don't know how to help revent these bruises and sores and all these little injuries that go along with wearing casts long term.  And this is only week two!  I don't remember him getting sores when he was an infant... then again he wasn't walking in those.  And when he broke his leg last year he didn't get any of that and that cast was on for 6 weeks!  But again that was only on one foot and he wasn't really walking on it so much.  I guess he just did too much too fast during his first week that this was his body's way of saying slow down... don't you know that kids don't slow down!?

Another thing that has proven to be a struggle is bath time.  We ended up putting a stool in the tub and having him sit on it with his legs hanging over the tub and I put a towel over then so they wouldn't get wet.  Then I washed his hair and scrubbed him down with a sponged and rinsed him off the best I could.  I've got to find a better way to do this because that was uncomfortable.  I wish I had one of those hair dresser sinks to wash his hair.  It would come in handy.

I'm not complaining really I'm just trying to paint a picture of what we're dealing with and if other parents who are facing the same situation soon make their way over here then they can get an idea of the things that they may go through in some form or fashion.  Obviously every parent will deal with it differently but I'm certain that the bottom line will be pretty similar.  And if I can be of any help by sharing our story then my job is done.  Sometimes its a comfort to know that other parents struggle just as much sometimes.  Being a parent is no easy job but being a parent of a child with 'special needs' is a little tricky sometimes.  But I wouldn't trade this job for the world.  These are the things that shape a person and makes them stronger.