IT’S OFF!!!!!!! Part 1
It was a very busy day overall with less breaks in it than I had expected. MaryAlice and Roy came up as they had been invited to story time by MaryVic. William rode along unaware of all that the day had in store for him…
MaryAlice and Roy arrived around 8:30 with the required chocolate donuts. She fed MaryVic and got her dressed after laying down the law about pajamas not being appropriate storytime garb. William was a little easier since he can’t get away. Once we were ready, we loaded up and headed to the library.
The children had time to play on the computer for 10 minutes before the 10 a.m. storytime. I left MaryAlice with them in the activity room and went to take care of some library stuff. I came back at 11:05 worried that I had taken to long. No one was in the department other than staff. I stopped and asked about storytime and Ms. Kristin said that they were still in there. Really ???
I went in and they were all there busily making books. I sat down and helped MaryVic finish her book. MaryAlice worked with William on his book. 
We left the library at 11:15 and drove home to pick up Poppa and Daddy for an early lunch. MaryVic decided it was imperative that she have an Icee and almost melted down in the car over it. I don’t know where that stray thought came from to her head.
We had a quick lunch at Panchos. MaryVic stayed at the house with Poppa and Grandmomma while Daddy, Momma and William went to Vanderbilt. It broke William’s little heart to leave Poppa at the house. He cried, “Poppa, Poppa!!” until we reached the interstate then passed out.
We reached Vanderbilt after a bit of traffic. Thankfully we had left early enough that we were still there early. They had one of those wooden boxes with the bead maze on top so I sat there with William laying across my lap and playing with the beads. Greg and I chatted with some other parents from Hopkinsville, KY with a baby with clubfeet. They seemed to reassured somewhat in talking with Greg about it. Greg had issues with his feet as a baby too. Not nearly as bad as this kid, however.
A quick trip to x-ray. There is something about going into that dim room that sets William off. He screamed through the process. It was over quickly and we were back in the waiting room with the toy. Daddy got a turn with William across his lap.
We were called back to the cast room where we sat for a good 30 minutes before the doctor came in. There was a little girl maybe 6 or 7 years old who had just had her cast off, fractured wrist. Clubfoot baby had his casts off and was having his stitches checked. Another older boy was getting a cast put on his arm. Scooby Doo was on a t.v. so all the children were entertained.
Dr. Martus came in and showed us the x-ray pictures. You could still see the break but the bones were starting to ‘bridge’ and grow over the break. He didn’t see any problem with taking the cast off. He cautioned us to take it slow with William. He would be sore and stiff from being in one position for so long. Let him proceed at his own pace. Put him on the floor to wiggle around, etcetera. Keep carrying him around. Do we have any questions? Hmmm… There is only one pair of headphones on the wall? Do the parents get a set while the cast is coming off?
So now the cast comes off. You would think the little boy would be thrilled but no… Apparently he had bonded with the cast and the two year old rule of ‘MINE!’ was firmly in effect. The headphones were for him to keep him from being so scared of the noise from the saw. Would he wear them? No that was just another instrument of torture that was being inflicted on him. The child life specialist was called in but no toy was going to comfort him. He screamed, turned red, and reached out to Daddy, Momma, the child life specialist, not the guy with the saw…he was just evil at this point. “NO, DON’T, MOMMA, DAAADDDYYY!!” This last as Greg says for about 4 years of our lives. Finally the cast was off and Greg was able to scoop him up.
William snuggled in immediately. The saw guy came back to see if he was forgiven. Nope, lifetime grudge rule in effect. William came to Mommy while the saw guy tried to figure out if we were free to go. Greg saved the bar part of the cast, just the fiberglass – no steel rod, fyi. William and I looked at the dinosaur pictures and he gradually perked up
The skin was flaky but not as bad as we were expecting. We also didn’t notice any obnoxious smell either. There was just the hotspot on his back that we already knew about it and one spot on the back of his knees that was starting to get really red. It wasn’t great but so not as bad as expected. I could see that if he’d had to wear it much longer, he would have easily had more hot spots and it would have been a lot worse. The child life specialist told me to give him a warm bath when we got home to help ease the stiffness of his joints.
We ran into Dr. Martus inbetween rooms while looking at the dinosaur pictures. I asked him if we could go and he said yes. We proceeded to checkout and were told someone would be with us in a minute. An RN with other patients came up behind us and started chattings. She told me to do 2 warm baths or more a day over the next few days to help William deal with the discomfort of being mobile. She talked to the receptionist and we were finally able to go after promising to call the Cool Springs facility for a follow-up appointment in 8 weeks.
The care at Vanderbilt has been excellent. The only thing I would say is that we were surprised at the lack of follow-up advice after the cast came off. I guess we expected there might be a sheet or something. The warm bath suggestions were great but were totally asides as we bumped into staff. Warm baths sound completely logical but you know, not everyone does the logical.
So we went home. William was chatty on the way and seemed comfortable.
Recently
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Wait, I want photos….details!
May 5th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Hi I found your blog when searching for ‘spica cast’. My 2 year old is two weeks into hers! I find it interesting that you mention on cast off day you could still see the break on the x-ray. Can you describe this more? My DD’s break is the type where it snapped. I had assumed the X-ray would show her bone now straight with a crack or something similar but it is still bent. The Dr seems to think this is fine and I suppose I should trust him but I’m nervous about it. Just wondering if Williams was the same deal or not. Also how is he doing now a year later? Have his legs evened out in length yet?
May 5th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Hi Jennifer!
I’m sorry to hear about your two year old. It’s a very traumatic time, as you know. To answer your question, William had a helical spiral fracture. To quote the Dr. who performed the ‘fix’, they don’t even try to mate the two break surfaces together. They generally just try to get them pointing in the same general direction, and let the body do the healing. The initial ‘set’ looked more like he had lined a couple of match sticks up in parallel with a bit of overlap.
When the cast came off, you were still able to determine where the break was on the Xray’s because of the density of the bone, and slight uneven area around the break site. We’ve followed up with the Dr. until the last time, when basically we were told “come back in a few years and we’ll look again, but we’re not going to take any corrective action if needed until he’s 15+ years.” At that point, he didn’t even bother to take the Xray’s because we could tell they wouldn’t show anything. The progression of healing was very apparent when you look at the Xray’s in sequence.
His legs are still a bit uneven. Less than an inch. The response from the Dr was that for the next 15 years, the unevenness will shift back and forth as the body heals, grows, and tries to even things out. So, it’s going to start out a bit shorter, but because of the break, you’ll have increased growth in that area, and it will end up longer. Then the weight transfer will cause the other leg to grow more, and vice versa throughout most of his growth years, hopefully getting smaller each time until it’s mainly leveled out.
So. Yeah, he wobbles a bit when running. He can’t keep up with his 5 year old sister when running. (would he be able to at this point without the break? dunno.) Does he laugh hard, and run as hard as he can anyways? Yup. Personally, I feel that a large part of his difficulty is his age and development more than the fracture at this point. Sure, it affected it, because he ‘lost’ 6 months of walking, running and playing on it. But honestly, I think THAT is more responsible than the physical break was. My wife might disagree.
Let us know if you have more questions. I know there wasn’t a heck of a lot of information on the web when it happened to William, so I’ve left the site up with our experiences. It’s not the BEST resource in the world, but it does describe what happened pretty well, in my opinion. It doesn’t capture the extent of the emotion. I don’t think anything could.