And hello soft baby legs!
At 8:30am this morning Mabel was freed from her cast. It is history...well, it is in pieces in our dining room ready to be taped together for posterity, but it is now a piece of Mabel's past.
This morning went great, I couldn't have asked for a better scenario. Mabel did so well as they cut her cast off, no tears or anything. She wasn't even scared! I was so worried that she would be afraid of the saw being it was so loud and attached to a vacuum, but I guess with all my obsessive vacuuming and the fact that she got use the blow dryer right next to her when drying her cast, she wasn't fazed at all by the saw. She is such a brave girl. I've said it a million times during this process, but this baby amazes me every day. I'd also like to note the tech taking of the cast said it was the cleanest he had ever seen...oh yeah!!!
Holding her without the cast was like heaven. She felt so light, almost top heavy as Zack said and she seemed so tall, she had to have grown two inches since that cast was put on her. I didn't want to put her down for the x-ray - Mabel didn't want me to put her down either, but she allowed them to take a nice picture of her hips again. She did really well with that too. The doctor said he was "bubbling with exciting" looking at how great her hips looked in the x-ray. He said he couldn't be happier with how the socket is forming. Go Mabel! She sure knows how to grow a better hip (with just a little medical help that is). So now we go back in two weeks to the orthopedic surgeon for another x-ray and check-up to keep an eye on that hip to make sure it doesn't try to regress out of socket alignment. Stay put left hip...stay put!
After the cast came off we had an appointment at the orthotist for a brace to be fitted. Oh, it was like a dream putting Mabel into her car seat with no wedge, normally. I was so happy. She seemed a bit concerned and her legs still of course are in the position they were while being in the cast, but she still dealt with it well. She caught a nap in the car and since we had time Zack and I grabbed a cake for our personal celebration of this very monumental moment.
At about 10:30 (the doctor was running late) Mabel got fitted for her brace. I had only seen it briefly when we went last month so I'll be honest I was a bit disappointed that when she is in it she is pretty much exactly like she was in the cast. It is lighter and less bulky and the major point is it is REMOVABLE for baths. She is to wear it 23hours a day for a few weeks until the doctor decides to drop her down to what he thinks is appropriate, probably at first 22 hours, then 20 or 18, slowing coming down to just night time wear for pretty much as long as it is necessary. So the bad news is she can't sit in the brace, she really won't be able to stand and we still have to use the hospital car seat, but she can take a bath, we don't have to cut diapers up a special way to diaper her and all the clothes we got for her while she was in the cast we can still use now for the brace. There is a bright side. The brace will take some getting use to for all three of us.
Overall Mabel is doing great. She is almost over her cold so that is a huge plus! She is a little confused about what has just happened, remember she got very use to the cast and now her skin feels super sensitive and she is probably quite stiff and maybe sore. She still keeps her legs in the same position they were in the cast and probably will for sometime since she will be in the brace most of the time. She doesn't yet move her left leg and it may be sometime before the muscles build up in it to really move like the right, but I know she'll work on it. She cries if we have to move her too much to change her diaper, but she did LOVE her first tub that we gave her the minute we got home! She is getting another tonight, we have to get all that dry skin off that left leg!
It has been a weird day to say the least, but not the weirdest we've had here in the last few months. This one was a happy day...
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