We went straight in for x-rays and then waited and waited for the doctor to come in. In the back of my mind I was preparing myself to hear "two more weeks." But, the idea of waiting two more weeks was more than I could stand.
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| Ezra, doing a sticker book while we watied |
The doctor finally did come in and delivered the bad news. She showed me the x-rays and said... "he's doing great, it's just not quite as healed as I would like it to be."
I could have died... But she did give me SOME good news. She said. I will let you decide what is best since you know your son. We can take it off and be EXTRA careful for two more weeks, or you can leave the cast on for two more weeks.
I said "TAKE IT OFF!"
So he had two more weeks of taking it really easy. No running, Jumping and he could walk at his own speed only (we couldn't push him to do more than he wanted). Ezra isn't really the kind of kid who you just can't keep still so I wasn't so worried that I wanted to keep that horrible cast on. And he was old enough to understand that he needed to be careful or he could break his leg again.
He was just as happy as I was to get it off.
His sad tiny little legs. He was so skinny to start with. Then his demobilized state made his appetite go way down. He is incredibly skinny now.
Oh and the skin!!!! He left a huge pile of dead skin in our car, then another pile in my friends house where we went to visit after he got it off.
It took him a good week to start walking again. That second week I was on edge as he started doing all his normal things again like walking across the street to his friends house, and climbing on the stands at baseball games.
I still get a panicked feeling every time he cries because I imagine another six weeks of that miserable cast.
Now it has been three weeks and he just hobbles around at a pretty good speed. The doctor says it will be months before we can't tell that he broke his leg.
First, he was in a crazy position for 6 weeks straight and his muscles atrophied something fierce.
Second, in kids, as the bone heals, it grows at a much faster speed than normal bone does. So, when the doctor set the bone, she overlapped it quite a bit to allow it to grow more without making his broken leg longer than the other in the long run. Talk about having faith. Why couldn't he have just broken his arm?
At the moment, one leg is nearly an inch shorter than the other. You can really tell when he is sitting with his back against something hard, His knees don't line up at all. So you can imagine it makes walking a little difficult.
We go back in August to see how the two legs are evening out. I hope by then he will be walking and running pretty normally.
In the meantime, he started kickball the other day and he didn't seem to care much that he can't run or kick very well, he manages.
I'm also got him in a months worth of swimming lessons in June. Swimming is great for his leg, this way he will have daily therapy and I don't even have to get wet! Not to mention that it's more fun and cheaper than real physical therapy.
