I've broken a few bones in my life. A wrist on the playground in elementary school and a hand playing football in High School. I remember that wearing a cast for several weeks was a pretty annoying thing, but i never occurred to me how miserable little baby Ben would be with both of his legs in casts. After all, its not like he is walking yet, so he doesn't really use his legs very much other than to make it difficult to change his diaper. The doctor spent so much time at our first appointment telling us how awful it would be when he got the braces that he didn't bother to mention what the first couple of days in casts would be like.
Well, now we know. The casting process wore the poor guy out, so he slept fitfully off and on for the majority of the day. However, once night fell and he had regained some strength, he cried and screamed for about 6 hours straight. I think he eventually wore himself out again sometime around 4 in the morning, but by then his mom and I were completely frazzled and ready to throw in the towel. I didn't think that a 2 week old infant had yet developed the ability to produce tears, but today I saw a single tear come from his eye and it completely broke my heart. Poor little guy, daddy is sorry.
Hi Chris, I am a good friend of January Pfiester and she shared your link with me. My son, Bennett, was born with bilateral club feet in Nov. 2010. It's been a wild, loooong journey but he is doing great. I felt way out in the weeds w/no idea what was in front of us. I meant to blog....life was too crazy, though.
ReplyDeleteFeel free to get my contact info from January if you want any tips, etc. Bennett had casts for 7 weeks, had surgery (heel chord lengthening), then into casts for 3 more weeks, and into the shoes and bar. He actually wound up w/blisters that first day and had to get refitted in his shoes-frustrating and heart breaking. His first bath was amazing at 10 weeks!
Have a huge "casts off" party-mostly for you and your wife. It's a huge milestone and it's fun to show off his legs. I learned all sorts of new positions for nursing, using a baby carrier, etc. Happy to share!
It's a hard road, but you got this!
Elizabeth Burns Kramer
Thanks for the encouragement Elizabeth! Fortunately he was only in casts for 2 weeks before they did the tendon lengthening, so I guess I should be greatful for that. I can't imagine what 7 weeks of that would have been like, the removal and replacement of the casts each week just about broke me. Now we just have the braces to look forward to and everybody keeps telling us that is the worst part...
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