JuggerBaby’s clean bill of health
January 11, 2017
The cast is off! JuggerBaby seems to have healed up quite well, and aside from some minor anxiety about going to the doctor at all, isn’t the worse for wear after zir ordeal.
The day of judgment came a lot faster than we expected but I’m sure that was because each day after Day 1 of Cast Days was full of accommodations and learning how to do new and/or odd things.
Things we learned
Getting dressed was a weird amalgamation of summer clothes topped with a pom pom hat and puffer vest. Odd-looking, but it did the job. They just need to be safe and warm (or cool) as the weather might call for.
We were told that a sponge bath was perfectly fine for a toddler but they’ve never met a child as willing and able to become perfectly filthy in the course of a normal day as JuggerBaby. Besides, we’re softies – bathtime is zir favorite time, it didn’t seem like too much to ask to wrap it tightly in a towel, then wrap it with a plastic bag, then tie it off with a tight but not too tight rubber band so that ze could enjoy 15 minutes of Splash Zone every night.
We learned how to hold zir still for x-rays: gentle coaxing to imitate our hand placement, stickers to look at while positioning hands, reminding zir that it’s just a special kind of picture. It helps that ze and PiC have a habit of taking pictures together everywhere they go.
The post-cast limb smells TERRIBLE. It was awful, I nearly went overboard swabbing zir arm with alcohol swabs to remove the stench. The cast technician reminded me that the skin was still delicate before I gave zir another problem to heal from. Whew. Also the cast removal was full of bawling and screaming but it was physically painless for zir, and relatively fast.
Kaiser Pediatric is awesome about getting kids in and out of their appointments quickly and smoothly, they have an abundance of bribery stickers, and what could have been a much more painful experience was made as easy as possible. I’ve never been so happy to have an HMO.
Random people are full of sympathy for a kid with a cast on. They stop and tell you funny stories about the foul things they did when they had a cast, and commiserate with the child who fails to milk the sympathy situation.
I’m glad to hear JuggerBaby has recovered nicely!
Baguette broke her leg when she was 2-1/2, and the x-rays were so bad. Nothing could persuade her that they weren’t scary.
I think it gets much scarier as you get older, the machines are so big and loud. Well, they’re loud to me.
Heh heh heh! Ahhhh parenthood. The best thing about getting old is you get to enjoy other people’s cute little kiddies, but you don’t have to put them to bed…or take them to the ER. š
M’hijito never hurt himself very seriously, though he scared the bedoodles out of me a couple of times. Once he ate a bottle of Chlor-trimeton, thanks to my amazingly idiotic ex-mother-in-law. Once he fell backwards off the back stoop and whacked the back of his head on the brick patio…that was darn scary! But he turned out to be OK. Once he developed scarlet fever…that was even scarier. And there was the time the Great Dane attacked him — had his head completely inside its mouth when our German shepherd came flying through the air like Superman and physically knocked the animal off him. And the time he turned blue with an asthma attack. And the two occasions when cars nearly ran over him. And the time he fell off the pool steps when my back was turned, heaven help us. But by & large it was more close calls than anything.
Parenthood is one long adventure. Luckily most of the adventure is of the fun variety.
Some days, you’re just glad to survive intact!
I think the worst injury I’ve had to deal with was breaking my foot a few weeks after I got married. Trying to get around on crutches for six weeks was awful. I switched to a wheelchair instead and my new husband kindly helped wheel me to the El train every morning.
Or maybe the worst injury was the non-injury I had when I was about 5. I fell down the stairs and my mom took me to the ER to get checked out. I was fine, but the grilling I got about whether I had actually fallen or was pushed or beaten by my mom terrified me and made me bawl. Yeah, that’s a memory I’ll never lose.
Oh my goodness, we had to face similar questions about abuse (though I’m positive not nearly as badly as you did) when we took zir to the ER and I feel like even MORE of a heel. I don’t know how that doesn’t traumatize you at age 5!