Braces!

Well, I called the doctor yesterday, because E has managed to break a hole in the heel of his cast after only 2 weeks.  As we're out of town next week, if we needed to make another trek up to Chapel Hill for cast repair, it needed to happen this week.  Fortunately, Dr. H's nurse assured me that a hole in the heel is not cause for repair, and she said that we could just patch it at home with Duct Tape.  Feeling pretty good about the decision to take E's formal 1 year shots and our family pics late last month, as I'm sure the bright green cast would look fabulous in the pics complete with a silver Duct Tape patch!  While I had her on the phone though, I asked if she could give me any info on what to expect regarding E's brace after casting.  Dr. H had not gone into much detail about what we would be dealing with, and boy, am I glad I asked!

Apparently, after the cast comes off we'll be passed along to the PT (physical therapy) department to have a mold taken of E's foot and lower leg.  That mold will be sent off and an AFO (ankle-foot orthosis) will be fabricated to be worn in his shoe during the day.  It will take a few weeks to get it back, so we'll likely get that around mid-January.  However, we'll go home that day with a ponsetti-type brace.  For those of you reading who've seen pictures of what the procedure is for clubfoot kids, you may recognize these as the brace that is two shoes with a metal bar connecting them.  He'll start that night (Merry Christmas, indeed) wearing the ponsetti brace at night when he's sleeping.  I had been so optimistic that we were going to have a daytime only brace.  I can't begin to describe how disappointed I was about the nighttime brace.  I don't operate well on lack of sleep, and the idea of "looking forward" to having to put my son in a brace he's not going to like (who would) and expecting a 14 month-old to fall asleep that way is not appealing.  I know he'll get used to it, as I've quickly come to realize that he's much more resilient than I am.  I just hate listening to him cry, and there isn't going to be any getting around this thing.  He has to wear it.  We can't risk re-occurrence.  We'll do what we need to do.  However, this does somewhat put a damper on how excited I was for the cast removal.  He's used to the cast.  The brace is going to be an adjustment.  Disappointing.  Not what I was expecting from my reading, and I'm really more disappointed than I was in Dr. H's lack of communication skills.  He's a good doctor, and from what we've experienced and heard, he's a good surgeon.  Communication?  Not his forte.  Grrr.