Sunday, May 24, 2009

A Quick Decision...

This morning when Leah woke up, I noticed that her cast was really loose. Luckily, Lisa, our OT had scheduled therapy for this morning. When she got here she also commented on loose and soft the cast was. Since she has not really worked with this material too much, she said it looked fine and should stay on, but that she didn't really know how well.

After every cast, the casting specialist and our OT always tell us to watch the thumb. If for any reason we can't see the thumb the cast needs to be removed right away. This is because the way they are positioning the cast and circulation issues. Well, all day I was checking the cast because I knew it was loose...then tonight I watched Leah pull her thumb out and pop it back in place. She did this a few times and I started to get worried.

Also, this entire time Leah has not complained once about the cast and tonight she was definitely telling us that something was not right with it. I'm not sure if she was uncomfortable or if she thought it felt funny because it was sliding off or what. I called Lisa as soon as this all happened and she basically left the choice up to us. She said she thought it would be hard for her to slip out of the cast but since her thumb is going in we should watch it and if it goes completely in we should remove it.

After the phone call, I watched Leah for a bit and noticed that her thumb was in, so we made the quick decision to remove the cast. I was too nervous to let her sleep that way, not knowing where the cast may be cutting off circulation. Lucky for us, this material was peel off, so I grabbed the tape at the end and unraveled the whole cast.

I'm feeling pretty bummed out that we had to take it off early, but my mommy instinct is telling me that it was the right thing too do. Ideally we would get into the OT to get her casted again right away and that would be Tuesday morning, but we have a Physiatrist appointment then. Hopefully, Tuesday afternoon--if not, we'll try for Wednesday. Our OT has assured me that these couple of days without it, won't effect Leah overall. I'm just upset because she was doing so well. I'm looking forward to getting her casted again...asap!

2 comments:

Popcorn House said...

Glad you were able to figure out what to do! Good luck with the new cast! Keep us posted!

Popcorn House said...

Waiting for an update! :o)