Casting: The first few hours.

After paitently waiting all day, at 3:00pm we went to the center to have Leah's cast put on. I cried on and off all day, on the way to the center, when we got to the center, and during the casting! Leah was in a great mood, she sat on my lap as our OT worked with the casting tech to prep her. We put in Blue's Clues--we learned today that she really doesn't care for it! She watched and was great for the entire them they were prepping her, this took about 10 minutes. After that she completley lost interest in Blue's Clues and she had enough of being restrained. She was bawling the rest of the time, only about 15 more minutes. It was very hard for me to hold her down and because of this the cast was not placed on how they would have liked. They said that because she was moving so much that the cast is not as tight as they wanted. The casting tech fully expects that Leah will be able to wiggle out of it over the weekend. Not the kind of news I wanted to hear! After the cast was put on, we took Leah into another room so that her OT, PT and the casting tech could watch her. She was again in a great mood! She started crawling right away, which was great. She also wanted to pull up so badly, which was hard for her, but she found a way to do it. Right away we saw he playing a little more with lefty. We tried to give her a snack, but she still has a very hard time grabbing and bringing that hand to her mouth. Once the food was placed in her hand she needed only a tiny bit of help to turn her wrist to get it into her mouth. One of my main fears with the casting was eating, I know this is something that is very difficult for Leah. She was overall in a fantastic mood and the cast was not bothering her a bit. When we got home, we played for awhile and I must say I was getting a bit discouraged. I feel like everything I have read about CIMT the child starts right away using their effected hand and doing all these amazing things, this was not the case tonight with Leah. She was very happy to just bang the cast around and crawl around. I know it had only been a short period of time and we have all weekend to really work on things. Leah ate dinner nicely. I gave her some green beans to practice placing in her hand and bring it to her mouth. Leah has a terrible time suppinating her hand making feeding herself very difficult. I loved that she did try to grab the green beans from my hand, but she also tried to cheat and get them with her mouth! Little stinker! After dinner, I noticed Leah was getting very sleepy. I decided to put her in the stroller and walk up the block. I felt like the fresh air would be good for her, we came home, nursed and now she is in bed. I watched her for a little while on the video moniter and I saw she was frustrated that she couldn't pull up in her crib, but it looks like now she is sleeping. I was also very nervous about putting her in the crib with the hard cast. I will go up and check on her shortly, to make sure she is sleeping in an ok position. Tomorrow, we have our PT coming. She will act like an OT as well, because our OT has a confrence tomorrow. Our OT will come on Sunday. All in all, I'm feeling ok about the process. I'm still sad that she has to go through this, but I can only hope that it brings good things for Leah. I'm so unbelieveably relieved that she is not upset or frustrated with it. I'm having a total issue with clothing for her! It's cold out here now and nothing with long sleeves fits over the cast! For her pajamas I cut the left sleeve off of them so that it would fit! I guess I just totally was overwhelmed with everything else that I didn't even think about dressing her! During the casting. After, playing with her PT,Nadine.