Eight weeks ago today Miss Emily broke her leg riding her bike. It's made for an interesting summer. We had plans, we had lists of things we wanted to do as a family and a broken leg was most definetly not one of them. It's been hard! I know it could have been worse so I shouldn't complain too much but this broken leg deal hasn't been easy.
Emily's cast went up to her thigh keeping her knee bent and her foot pointed down. She would complain and end up in tears because she couldn't straighten her leg out or bend her foot. When I take a moment to think about not being able to straighten my leg or bend my foot I feel a bit of anxiety and to know she couldn't do these things for about 6 weeks makes it worse. We all felt sorry for her but there was nothing we could do.
One of the worse things about this cast was that it couldn't get wet! This made bath time extremely difficult. In the end I wrapped a hand towel around her thigh and then tied a garbage bag around it trying to keep the cast dry. It worked for the most part. Our master bath has a little ledge on the side that came in handy for her to be able to rest her leg on to keep it out of the water. I only filled the bathtub up a few inches and then used our removeable shower hose to get the rest of her wet and rinsed. It worked!
This hot pink cast of her's was also non-bearing which meant she wasn't to put any pressure on her foot, no walking! Having a newborn, a 3 year old and a dad that hasn't been around a lot this summer has made it even harder. EVERYWHERE we went Emily had to be in a stroller or be carried. Usually I had Hunter or Madelyn pushing her and than I'd push our other stroller that had the baby and Brayden. Worse case scenario I carried Emily, one of the big kids carried the baby and the other held Brayden's hand. It's when I didn't have the bigger kids help that life got really interesting. Needless to say I haven't venture to far from home by myself this summer. This has really slowed my life down a bit but suprisingly it hasn't slowed Emily down to terribly.
This girl sits on her bum and scoots herself or she crawls on her hands and drags her body behind her wherever she wants to go. She's got callouses on top of her toes. She's all over the place. I feel like I have a crawling toddler again that's always under foot. Like a crawling toddler this pretty little girl has been stepped on and tripped over to many times to count. But the point is she can still get around on her own if needed.
Then about 2 weeks ago she had another doctor's appt. Her leg was x-rayed and it was decided that her leg was healing the way it was suppose to. YIPPEE! She got a new cast. This one doesn't cover her knee, allowing it to bend, it is weight bearing and water proof! Wow!!!!! What a difference. This girl can now bathe by herself and walk. Well I guess it's more of a hobble as her heel is still casted but she no longer needs to be pushed around in a stroller or carried. She can "walk" through the sprinkler's, play with water balloons and not be worried about getting wet. It's made my life a bit easier with this new cast. Just a few more day's to go and then hopefully she can finish out the last 2 weeks of summer before school starts cast free. I can hardly wait!
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