Castings

The first step in my monkey's journey with correcting his clubfeet was castings. These began when he was 6 days old!

                                                                  His first casts

After first casts were taken off

It was hard to go to those first few appointments as my little baby had no idea that this would help him in the long run and would scream as they put the casts on. It didn't help that he hated having his feet touched because in the hospital he had to have his heels pricked for blood and he did not like that at all! Made having to get casts on hard as he would scream if we even touched his feet never mind casted them! After our first casts were off the doctor said it Looked like he would only need 4 sets before the tendonotomy. That was nice to hear! In the end he was in casts for about 13 weeks. The left was ready way before the right.  It was frustrating at first but the weekly (sometimes twice weekly) appointments to ACH became a part of life and I knew in the end it was what was best for my boy.  There were some casts that monkey man really didn't like and we did discover there was a huge difference when we had early morning appointments and took the casts off the night before or the ones we did the morning of.  It meant waking up early to get a bath in since he could only have a bath when the casts came off but it did make a huge difference how he reacted to the castings.  Oh ya the casts were a wrap sort of like a tensor bandage which I was so thankfull for!  I remember my brother being nicked by the saw when he was a kid getting a cast cut off and I cannot stand that sound since!  It was a question I asked Dr.Joughin when we first met actually as I was scared my baby would need the casts cut off and wasn't sure how I would handle that- it was bad enough when I needed to have it done when I broke my ankle I couldn't imagine how I would deal with it when it was my baby.  Although I have come to learn that being a Momma makes you able to handle things you might not think you can :)

Here is a picture of Monkey man with one cast off since he kicked it off (slipped a bit) so we needed to unwrap it and go get another put on

When we first started the journey I came across a few other people online who were going through the same thing I was with their babies close in age of my monkey man.  It was so great to be able to talk about what we were going through with someone who was also going through it at the same time!  While we have never met (hope to some day) I consider these ladies great friends. They have been there for me through the ups and also through the downs!  There to encourage me and make me remember that in the end this is all worth it. 

The casts didn't slow him down at all!  Some of them actually helped him- the set he was wearing at 3 weeks allowed him to crawl :)

People looked at us quite funny at times as it looked like my boy's feet were on backwards but they have to over correct with the casts. You can see that in this picture and also see that we used baby leggings to cover the casts.  Loved Baby Legs and Agoo and others as it is hard to fit pants on over top some of those casts!

Before we were done with the casts he needed to have the tendonotomy done- which they did during a casting.  Only difference was that we weren't in the room with him and he had some local freezing done so they could cut the tendon.  It felt like forever waiting in the waiting room and not being with my baby!  But he was in good hands.

    

                                                  The day of his tendonotomy- happy man

After the tendons were cut he had 2 weeks of casts before we moved to the boots/bar system.  That is the next step after the castings.