Casts Came Off

On Thursday February 25th we went to Salt Lake City to get Jacob's casts off. Yeah. They x-rayed his ankles and saw that they were healing great. In the x ray you could still see where the bone was cut but the edges of the bone were all fuzzy looking meaning that they were fusing back together and healing well. They have not fully healed internally so Jacob has to still take it easy. He can start walking on it and also bearing weight.

Getting the casts off were such a challenge. The poor medical assistant had to cut and cut through the casts and finally had to call Dr. Klatt in to help get his left leg cast (orange cast) off. Somehow when the doctor put the cast on he put a sock on over the padding and it was sticking to the fiberglass cast. They had to come in pull the cast apart and then cut the cost off in order to get the cast off.

So when the casts came off I was so shocked at what it all looked like. Not what I expected. Jacob's incision in the inside side of his ankle was a lot larger than I thought that it would be. It was over 2 inches and then he had his cut in his legs on the sides and then the pins in it. Wow not what I thought. Then they grabbed the pins and literally just pulled them out. They came out very smoothly. I could not believe how long they were. They were over 3 inches long. They were completely inside of his leg and bone. They were skinny with sharp ends like a nail. I asked how they got them in and the doctor said that they have this skinny drill that they just drill right up into the bone and drill the pins directly into the leg. The pins are about 10 inches long and once they have them as far as they want into the leg they cut the ends and bend them over. So crazy.

I still can't believe what his legs looked like. I was freaking out when the pins came out. I was so excited to take pictures of it and film it but my camera batteries died. From now on I will always have extra batteries in my camera. I just did not expect that Jacob's legs would look the way they did and that they would take the pins out the way they did. Jacob didn't feel anything either. He just laid there and had no idea what was going on. I think things looks worse too because his skin was just falling off everywhere from not being able to breath very much for a month and then there was blood on his bandages still and not all of his stitches had dissolved.

Jacob was given a removable boot to wear for the next while. Jacob can't start therapy for a few weeks and also he can shower but not take a bath. The doctor wanted the holes where the pins were to heal before he submerses himself into water and have his leg get infected. Jacob was so excited to get all of his casts off. It will be nice to see him walk and walk straighter.

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March 3rd. So Jacob walked on his leg this weekend quite a bit. He still walks with his legs out because of his hips. If we tell him to concentrate on walking he can walk straight . It will take a while for him to train himself to walk straight. Well because of the walking his right ankle has started to really swell up. It is so large. We called and emailed the doctor pictures of his ankles. We were worried that he broke it again. Because he really had no feeling in his ankles it is hard for him to feel pain and tell if something is wrong. Dr. Klatt's said that he probably just walked on it too much and needs to stay off of it for 2 more weeks. He needs to always wear his casts and to elevate his foot a lot and take Ibuprofen for the swelling. They said that in a week if it doesn't look better than we needed to call them again. We were worried too because when I took Jacob's casts off in the evening today his toe next to his big toe was sticking straight up. When we put his cast on in the morning we accidentally pushed his toe up and probably dislocated it. So all day it sat like that with his toe dislocated. He had no clue because he couldn't feel. I called for Enoch and then push the toe in place. I probably should have waited for Enoch to see it but I freaked out and put it back in right away. It is a little bruised but not swollen or anything. So scary. So yes we need to be really careful. I want Jacob to heal properly and with out problems. We are happy though with how he is handling it all. His skin is looking better. I think that he has lost 20 layers of skin in a week. It is crazy. Jacob still doesn't like looking at his foot because of the bandages and the scars and all the dead skin falling off. We are hoping that things will heal quickly.

You can see how swollen his ankles are in these pictures.