Today was Liam’s cast-off day. I had read enough accounts from other parents online to know that having the cast taken off might really scare him. The saw, for starters, is loud and scary, and so are the loss of the weight of the cast and the adjustment to having stiff muscles and joints. I was prepared to be dealing with a sad and confused little Liam tonight. However, Liam, as always, exceeded expectations.
My friend from school, Rachel, came with us in case we needed an extra set of hands. I was very thankful she had come along when it took both of us to hold Liam down while the doctor worked on sawing the cast off. Liam screamed and cried. At first he was scared. Soon his cries went from fear to anger and he kept yelling “guck” (as in he was “stuck”). But as soon as the cast was off, I picked him up and he quieted right down. He was still whimpering a little as I was scheduling a follow up appointment at the front desk. Then, a few minutes after we stepped out of the door onto the street, he suddenly perked up and started chatting away, very happily. He started saying Rachel’s name over and over which was really cute because he had never done that before. He was chatty, happy, flirty, and silly the whole subway ride home. Rachel came home with us and he kept pointing at her across the subway car calling “Rachel!” The subway ride gave me a chance to inspect his leg a little. The skin was actually in much better shape than I had expected. It was peeling pretty badly in a few places, but there were no open sores and nothing that looked any worse than a peeling sunburn.
Once we got home he asked to play on the floor with his cars. At first he held his leg in the same position that the cast had held it. But as he played, there was minute by minute improvement in his use of the leg. He went from holding it out to the side a bit, to tucking under his body when he tried to crawl, to figuring out how to sit, to going from the sitting to crawling position and back again.
When Jason came home, Liam ate a big dinner (phew!), we said goodbye to Rachel, and Liam took his first bath in almost 5 weeks. He was a little skeptical at first of the water, but quickly warmed up to the idea when I put all of his bath toys in with him.
I never thought Liam would take another change so well. I expected he had built some kind of relationship with that cast and would be sad to see it go. Or that he would feel like the cast was part of him and someone had cut his leg off. For whatever reason, I felt he would be no different than the kids I had read about online. However, nothing about his mood or demeanor indicates that he misses the cast at all. Unlike those other kids, he seems to recognize (despite 5 weeks going by) that the cast was not normal and that now he’s back. You can’t keep a good man down!
P.S. We’re almost entirely moved in to our new Brooklyn digs. Pictures soon!
Cast-Off I from Nina Philipsen Hetzner on Vimeo.
Cast-Off II from Nina Philipsen Hetzner on Vimeo.
Cast-Off III from Nina Philipsen Hetzner on Vimeo.
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