Our doctor agreed to seeing us one week earlier than originally planned due to some of our concerns with Mackenzie's cast. We weren't 100% sure whether or not they were going to take the cast off at that appointment or make us wait until the following week when the cast removal was scheduled.
It never fails that our appointments seem to fall at a time where Mackenzie has missed a nap or could/should have napped in the car, but didn't. So, she ends up being a cranky mess on top of everything else that is going on. Yesterday was no exception.
As with all of our appointments we started out with an x-ray. The x-ray technician this time was less than friendly. She was trying to get me to hold Mackenzie's free leg in the same position as her casted leg. Well, at this stage in the game Mackenzie wants nothing to do with laying on examination tables or dealing with medical professionals as a whole. She was crying and only one parent is allowed in for the x-ray so I was having to try to hold her down and hold her still. I told Brice that I never want to have to be the one to do that again. I hate having to try to restrain her and she doesn't understand what is going on and she is scared. I don't think they got a very good picture because I couldn't hold her totally still while keeping her hands out of the way and her leg elevated how the technician wanted it.
After the x-ray it was back to the waiting room again. Thankfully our appointment was pretty early in the morning so we didn't have to wait too long before we got called back to see the doctor.
You may remember that our doctor was not the one to do this cast. He was on holidays when it needed to be changed so one of his colleagues did it. Our regular doctor didn't seem to care for the cast structure or positioning right from the get go, so because of our other concerns with the cast possibly shifting and the leg circulation when Mackenzie would sit on it, he agreed to take it off at this appointment.
Enter the "cast technitian". They needed to make cuts along both lengths of the leg as well as both sides of the torso in order to remove the cast. The "saw" is very noisy so we were given ear protection for both Mackenzie and ourselves. As soon as she had the ear pieces on she was already upset. Then when the saw turned on she got more upset. Then when the saw was actually cutting the cast she was freaking out and crying so hard and trying to get away. Both of us had to hold her down and move her around so the technitian could make all the cuts. After that he had to use scissors to cut out the inside cotton part of the cast. The whole thing maybe took 5 minutes, but it felt like an eternity. It is a terrible feeling to have to hold your child down while they are so upset and not being able to explain to them what is going on.
We were given some clothes and towels to give her a quick wipe down. She was stinky!!!
The doctor came back in and told us he wanted to put Mackenzie back in a diaper splint like she had before we did the closed reduction. He wants her to wear it for 6 weeks full time (except for diaper changes and baths) and then we will re-evaluate. He tried to examine her once the cast came off, but she was so worked up and upset that it wasn't really possible. We asked about a different kind of brace as we have never seen any other DDH patients with these splints, but he said that those were for longer term treatment, or something along those lines that didn't make much sense to us. As we find every time we go there, he didn't do much explaining and was heading out the door as fast as he could.
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| Cast free, pretty tired, and waiting for the diaper splint to be made. |
Mackenzie doesn't fit in her carseat with the brace, so she got to be totally free for the drive home and slept pretty much the entire way.
I'll update tomorrow with how the first few days have been going in the brace/diaper splint.......it's been a bit rough.
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