Growing bone

Yesterday we went in to see Dr. Kogan. Jack had xrays done and they were fascinating to see! I wish I had brought my camera to take a picture of them to share. You could see where both bones were broken and where the pins and rods are attached. We all thought it was very cool, including Jack who seems completely unfazed talking about the saws used to cut his bones and how the pins were drilled in there.

We learned how to turn the fixator. Basically, there is 6 rods and we turn each one until it clicks. There is ruler markings on each rod, so we can see it growing the 1 mm each day. Pretty easy, even Jack did one of them. She gave us this printout of a schedule...it shows each day what the ruler reading should be after the turnings. We decided I would do the turnings each morning after I shower Jack and clean up around the fixator. Jon isn't happy about this...he says I'm stealing all the glory :) We're going to try to make a video of how to do it and show that it's painless (Jack says it feels weird, but doesn't hurt).

I've gotten a lot of questions about the fixator getting wet. He can shower with it on. We have to use Dial antibacterial soap and basically soap up above the fixator and let the soap run down his leg. It's fairly easy, but I have to say Dial soap does not give him the sweet little boy smell that his Wild Berry Suave body wash does. After showering, I usually inspect around all the pin sites to see if there's any gunk that's built up (gross, I know!) If there is, I clean it up with sterile q-tips. He can't take a bath, but he can swim in a chlorinated swimming pool. He starts pool therapy soon, which I am so excited for. I'm also debating putting him in swim lessons, it is a huge hassle to drag all 3 kids to the YMCA. But, it's really the only exercise he can do and he loves swimming. They offer private lessons, which obviously he would need. I'm going to see how the first pool therapy session goes and then decide.

We really got quite the looks yesterday in the hospital. It's amazing how nice people are to you when they see you've got a kid in a wheelchair. We got a lot of questions of "how did he break his leg?" I am torn on how to answer this....part of me wants to really educate people on what we're doing and about his congenital defect. The other part of me thinks it's A LOT of effort to explain over and over what's going on. Jon and I were trying to come up with funny responses. My favorite was "it's a skydiving accident." Jack didn't find that funny.

We ended the day at Rainforest Cafe for lunch. I really really really do not like Rainforest Cafe. But, it was Jack's choice and Jon said he had one more day of getting anything he wanted so that's where we went. :)