Not as happy post-cast as I thought I'd be

It was awesome to get the cast off - don't get me wrong.  However, in his (apparently) typical fashion, our doctor informed us today that E would be in braces for "several years" with no specification or estimate of how many.  Also, when I asked about the Dobbs bar with the hinge, Dr. H seemed a little put off that I would even make that request and he informed me that we'd be getting a solid bar with no other option because that was the only one they carried.  The only one they carry is the Denis Brown bar (curved, but not hinged).  So, my super mobil son who hates to have his feet restrained is currently sitting in his crib (exhausted) but not lying down to sleep.  I'm impressed that he has so quickly figured out how to move to a sit with his feet bound together, and he has (for now) stopped crying.  I'm sure he'd be having the same (or similar) issues with learning how to sleep even if we had the bar I wanted, but it's easy to sit here and blame the doctor.  Maybe not fair, but easy.  He may not have much input into what specific bars/shoes their clinic carries, because it is a large hospital system.  I have a hard time believing that, as he's the head of the department, but I should give him the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe I will have an easier time with that tomorrow.

So we've come up with a tentative schedule, as he gets to be out of the brace for 6 hours a day during the next 4 weeks, so I have a game plan for tomorrow.  After we were fit with the DB bar and shoes, we went over to the hospital's pediatric PT department where we waited for an hour for the skeleton crew department to (thankfully) fit us in to have a mold taken for E's daytime brace.  He's going to have a custom made ankle foot orthosis (AFO) to wear during the day, so he'll only have to be in the bar at night and during his nap.  I think that will be a lot easier for him to get used to than this thing (insert me making a face).

It's been interesting watching E figure out how to move without the cast.  He's very ginger with it, as I'm sure it feels very strange to have it so exposed.  He's not a fan of crawling or putting weight on the right knee, and he got frustrated easily this afternoon.  He's used to having the weight of the cast as a counter balance when he's sitting and shifting around, so he spent a lot of time falling over backwards.  Which, fortunately, he thought was hilarious.  He did not attempt to pull to stand at all today, and the times I put him in standing he primarily stayed on his left foot.  The few times he attempted to use the right foot to balance, the right knee collapsed and he fell to the right.  Not as happy about those falls, but his knee is so weak from lack of use for 5 months.  It will take some time, I'm sure.

His skin on that right leg is a mess.  The back of his calf is pretty splotchy, and he was not a fan of the washcloth being applied to it either time I attempted.  He was more tolerant of the lotion, and I applied lotion to his leg at every diaper change.  Given his history of eczema, I bought some Aveeno baby eczema last week to have on hand.  We did not attempt a bath tonight, as we decided he'd had a rough enough day already.  We'll attempt the bath tomorrow, and I'll post later this week to document how that goes.

In the days leading up to the celebration of Christ's birth, I am trying to keep in my head how thankful I am and how blessed we are.  In so many ways, my family is blessed beyond measure.  This journey is keeping us from getting too caught up in the excess and commercialization of the holiday, so for that I am also thankful.