unbroken

Austin got his cast off and his pins removed today.  Happy Day!

Farewell forever.

He was very brave when they removed these 3 pins.  Just like they said, they do it in the office.  Pretty much, they took a pair of pliers and yanked the things out.  They said there was no pain involved just a lot of pressure. Austin was super nervous about pulling them out so he whimpered a little.  I turned away because there was actually a lot of blood involved.  The doctor said the blood was coming from inside the bone, with each pull there was a gush and then it stopped.

Here is a close up of his freakishly hairy arm that still looks a bit Frankenstein-ish.

The doctors orders- no sports, no balls, no playground or slides, nothing with wheels for 6 weeks.  He can swim starting tomorrow and they said that swimming is actually great for getting his motion back.  I think Austin has forgotten he has a left arm, I am constantly reminding him to try and use it.  He is still very stiff and does not have full motion.  His nerves are still not functioning in his pointer finger or thumb but they are sure it will return to normal within months.  For now he is supposed to practice picking up Cheerios and exposing is fingers to both hot and cold sensations.

I didn't blog about Broken Arm Saga #3 last week so I will catch you up on that.  It will explain why Austin's arm looks so nasty.  I had our final check-up in IF last Tuesday, the doc said the arm looked great and would be ready in one week for the cast to come off.  Yeah!  24 hours later Austin was screaming in pain, crying in the night, itching like crazy and pretty much being a BEAST.  I decided I had better go back in just to make sure nothing was wrong.  After explaining the symptoms to the nurse she said the doctor wanted to take the cast off and take a look at the arm.  So they cut the his cast off.

Underneath was a horrible rash that they thought to be an allergic reaction to the skin prep used in surgery.  They decided to wrap his arm, shell it with the old cast held with the ace bandage and send us back to AZ with lots of benadryl and hydrocortisone.  That helped but he was still pretty miserable at times.  The rash spread and some days he had it on the back of his neck, face and stomach.  We are so happy to have the cast off so that hopefully the rash will clear up with some exposure to fresh air!

P.S. It is such a small world.  When the nurse practitioner came in she started questioning me about the surgeries.  I told her one was at Primary Children's in SLC the other at Mountain View in IF.  She asked why we were in IF, and then if we were actually from IF.  I told her and she said but are you actually from IF or just around there.  I told her IF and she said oh, because me and my husband are from Shelley!