Thursday, August 2, 2012

Casts on.... Casts OFF!!!

Ryder like many kids with CP is constantly facing the challenge of his muscles getting tighter as he grows. Everything that we are able to do for him is just a band-aid solution until his next growth spurt. We work so hard to stretch him and get him the exercise he needs but his body is constantly working against us and sadly it will never be enough. 

Last week we went in for our third set of castings. Ryder was again, unable to get his feet flat to the ground when walking. His major tightness comes from his hamstrings and heel cords. Since it's impossible to cast to stretch his hamstrings we went ahead to see if stretching his heel cords would make the difference he needs to get back walking with flat feet. Luckily one week was enough to loosen them but boy was that a LONG week!! No kid, no matter how old they are wants to be stuck in casts for any amount of time during the summer. The days were long and very repetitive with lots of tears for mommy to take the casts off! He went from sleeping solid for 12+ hours every night to waking up 3-5 times before Tyler and I would even have the chance to head to bed ourselves. Needless to say it was not fun for any of us.

Still smiling :)

Ryder's funky "Walking Shoes" I made him out of women's crocs! lol
He LOVED them!! 

Today we went back to the hospital for the nice man to take his casts off. Ryder was very excited. He even told a lady in the elevator all about it! Yesterday and today I explained to him over and over how the nice man would use a very loud saw to cut the casts off but that it wouldn't hurt and might even tickle. (Our experience last year was very traumatic for him and I really didn't want a repeat. He cried this cry that I had never heard in my life, the pure fear that something very bad and painful was going on and I was just sitting there letting it all happen.) This time however he did AWESOME!! The whole time the first cast was getting cut he laughed and kept saying "that tickles". By the second he was ready for it to be done but still only let out a couple whimpers. Two nurses came in directly after gave him cookies and said how brave he was and that he had been the most well behaved and quiet out of all the kids they had seen this week. 

After a week of sponge baths he was VERY happy to have a nice soak in the tub tonight :)

Unfortunately even though his heel cords are now loose enough to get his feet flat, he is still unable to walk flat foot with his AFO's on. He's still way up on his toes because his legs cant get straight. His hamstrings are just way too tight. Not exactly the results we were hoping for but at least we tried. So now we enjoy the rest of our summer and wait until September for our trip to Montreal. Hopefully then he will get the Botox injections in his hamstrings and possibly heel cords (which means more casts!!). Besides major surgery the Botox and casts are our only option right now.