Life with a Spica Cast

I've went to a conference for work this weekend, and Anthony did an awesome job alone with the boys. I knew everything would be fine, or I never would have gone. Now that I'm back, we are just counting the days left with this cast. Desi is using his arms and getting around more every day. He likes to hide under the table. With this heat wave, I've given up any hope of keeping the cast "cute" and just am trying to keep it from smelling. If that means mismatched bandages and no onesie covering everything up, so be it. My complete focus is keeping him comfortable. Just a couple more days!

We have one week left with the Spica cast! Desi is figuring out how to scoot around a bit, which must be taking a lot of upper body strength. He really enjoys playing the piano and the organ. It's one of the few activities that occupies him for more than few minutes. Desi helped me take the legs off this cool table so he can reach it. Really though, we are just barely hanging in there. Even though there's only a week left, I reach a point every night where I feel like I can't do it anymore. My house looks like this most of the time.

So, in my previous post I said I eventually found out that Desi's doctor never put in an order with durable medical equipment. After leaving messages, I spoke with a nurse today who said the order never went into because he was advised it would be declined for all temporary casts. So, I guess if your kid is not able to fit in his car seat for a few weeks or months, Kaiser doesn't really give a damn. She said I could take a denial of service letter to a company they contract with and see what they could do. My next call was to that company, where a very confused representative said they absolutely do not do private rentals or sales, they only contract with insurance companies. I asked her what my next step would be and she said, "With our company? Nothing." I'm so glad I spent two hours on the phone to deal with your attitude, lady. The picture to the left shows what Desi was up to while I was making all these calls. I really don't know what parents do in thi...

It's one week since Desi fell and fractured his femur. It's been a crazy week, filled with intense emotions from everyone. Today when we woke up I saw our dog had scratched his ear really badly. Just by looking at it I could see it was infected, so off to the vet we went. Thank goodness my mom was able to go and help me wrangle the dog, big kid, and little kid who feels like he weighs 50 pounds (it's 31 with the cast, I measured it). All was going O.K. until the veterinarian came in, wearing scrubs. I haven't mentioned it yet but since this happened Desi hates the sight of any medical looking building and especially people wearing scrubs. He flipped out, which made my conversation with the vet mostly shouted questions and responses. Again, thank God my mom was there, she helped a lot a bad situation. Got drops for his ear and once Desi was in the car he calmed right down. After that, I spent about two hours being transfered around or on hold with Kaiser. Even though h...

We had follow-up xrays today and the pediatric orthopedic specialist had a really good update for us. Based on how Desi's fracture looks today, he can take the cast off on the morning of the 27th. That's just eleven days from now! I can hardly wait. Good job little Desi bones on healing so quickly. So that's our big news for today. While we were at Kaiser, I had them cut some of the back of the cast off. They had left me virtually no space in the back to wipe his bottom. When I flipped him over and showed them today they were impressed I had managed to keep him clean at all with the cast like that. They cut off maybe three inches in the back so I have much more room to tuck a diaper in. I also bought him diapers that are two sizes smaller than what he wears, they fit much better inside the cast and they don't have to reach around his waist anyway due to the gdiaper cover. I heard back from Safe Kids Inland Empire. The lady I spoke with was very nice and apologetic but...

Last night was tougher than the first night with the cast. I'm not sure if he's more uncomfortable than at first, or just frustrated. Even though he was awake a lot of the night, he wanted to get up at dawn. So I got us dressed and took him out to our favorite bagel place. He was so happy to be going on an outing. As I buckled him in he excitedly asked "Go? Go!" When we got there, he proudly pointed out the bagel he wanted. Our little outing really cheered us both up after a hard night. Both my and Anthony's parents have came over with lots of gifts for him, trying to make things a little easier. We are so, so thankful. Also, Desi likes getting visitors. Today he enjoyed throwing balls into a box and using his new basketball hoop. I also made a sort of table that we can push the stroller under so Desi can feed himself. I'll cover it with something to make it a little nicer,  but right now he's just happy he can reach his own food. He took two long ...

Here's how we are doing tonight on the list of problems. We've survived diaper changes so far. In case you ever need to do this, I'm working with a combination of diapers tucked into his cast, duct tape to seal off edges, moleskin bandages that can be swapped out and a cloth diaper cover holding everything together. I emailed Safe Kids a pic of Desi in his car seat to see if they know what to do. This how he is bucked in now, it's loose in some areas and has to be shoved tightly into one leg. Not really a safe solution, but we have to do something by Monday when he needs to go to the doctor. Anth replaced the wheel on the jogging stroller and adjusted it, it is perfect. Hands down the most comfortable thing we have for him now. We took a nice log walk this morning before it got hot and he was so happy. Walks are going to be a big part of our day.  So, he likes walks in the stroller. I laid him on my legs on his belly and let him do chalk outside, he liked that f...

There are a lot of logistical problems we need to figure out now. I'm googling everything and also spoke to a family friend who had lots of good expertise. Here are the problems, in no particular order.  How to keep this cast clean through diaper changes. He doesn't fit in his car seat, we need to adjust it if possible or look into a special one (Hippo Car Seat). Possibly Safe Kids Inland Empire can help me rent one.  Our stroller won't be comfortable for him. We need to see if our jogging stroller might work.  How to keep him entertained when he can't move on his own. I'd like to find two things today that he can still do and enjoys.  Travel- I have a work conference coming up soon (with a new boss) and we have a family vacation at the end of the month. Need to figure out what to do about both.  Clothes for him to wear.  I know he doesn't need to be dressed but it helps keep him clean and the fiberglass cast is rough, I want to cover some up. Eatin...

I'm making a place to jot down my thoughts, which are frankly overwhelming. On Tuesday night I was cleaning up the backyard, hosing out some ice chests we used for our party on the fourth of July. The boys were both playing in the backyard while I worked. I heard a loud thump behind me and saw Desi had slipped on the wet concrete. Orion and I both ran to him,  the poor baby was screaming. I got him calmed down after maybe ten minutes,  then set him and O up with a movie. Here they are around 7 P.M. on Tuesday night. You can see the baby isn't happy,  but he's calm. About an hour later I picked him up from the couch to get him ready for bed. He screamed like I hurt him when I put his PJ's on. That's when I realized that I hadn't seen him walk since the fall. We got right in the car and headed to urgent care, which was about to close for the night.  They took Xrays of his ankle, leg, hip and pelvis. The doctor looked at them and said the wasn't a break but...