Hip Spica Cast

  I have been wanting to write this post since December of last year, giving our opinion of pros and cons while Emma was in her hip spica cast for seven weeks following her bilateral distal femoral osteotomy leg surgery in Delaware in October 2021. Originally, we were told by Dr. Mackenzie that her leg cast would only go up to her thighs, but it would not slip off because the knee area would be bent and that there would be a bar between the legs, as I had seen in several other photos online. However, the day before Emma's surgery, we were told that the cast would go all the way up her torso! I worried that would make diaper changes very difficult and messy. (There are a few Thanksgiving 2021 pictures at the end of this post! And as a note- we lived in an apartment complex called ShoreView in Bradenton at this time from September 2021 to March 2022, and we are still waiting for our house to be built. We are currently in a different apartment now, a bit North. We thought we would be moving in to the house at the end of this month, but now they are saying it should be finished by October.) 

PROS:

* It was actually easier/ cleaner to change her diaper without her legs (with her hip dysplasia) flopping around
* She wasn't able to get into her usual mischief while I took naps or took Sasha out because she was stuck laying down or in a sitting position
* Easy to hold her on our hip when standing
* I was able to paint her toenails for the only time
* Her jaw stopped popping all the time (TMJ?) because she had to sleep on her back instead of her usually sleeping on her sides at night and during naps

  I feel like there were more Pros, but maybe that is because we got used to the cast pretty easily, or it wasn't as difficult as we thought it would be/ we all adjusted to it pretty quickly, including Emma. I did wonder if she thought this was a new piece of "equipment" she would now have to get used to forever. We're all glad it wasn't. Even when Michael came home from the vet with Sasha (she got attacked really badly by another dog at the boarding facility while we were in Delaware!) and I was going to have to give her two medicines three times a day and several warm compresses on her  sutures, on top of all of Emma's usual and new care, after the first day, it wasn't as much work as it originally sounded like.

  Michael immediately bought Emma a Bumbo floor chair and cut out the leg parts on the sides so her casts would fit perfectly! We did always have to keep the Boppy pillow under Emma's cast to support her legs when she was laying down. The full hip spica cast added about five pounds to Emma's weight. By December, Emma taught herself how to scoot around a little bit when she was on her back, by leaning one way with her upper body (specifically when she was reaching for something), then twisting her bottom half to follow. Also, when I needed to change her diaper, she did a really good job of learning to follow my lead when I would say, "One, two, three, flip!" and she could turn over onto her stomach and get the cast to roll over as well.

CONS:

* Sleeping on her back caused the back of her hair to get very matted/ snarled (rat's nest) and she already doesn't like her hair being brushed
* Hard to get her in and out of the car/ huge Wallenberg hospital car seat and stroller
* Trach care was more difficult because we had to balance her on a big foam roller
* Could not give her proper baths for seven weeks, had to do floor baths with a wash cloth
* Hard to find outfits for her to wear, sometimes she only wore a shirt because the cast was like her pants, or she would wear a large dress over the whole thing
* Hard to play with her toys because she couldn't lean over with the cast up to her chest/ had to put them on a "table" for her (table made from the suction machine bag in front of her), but if they fell off she couldn't reach them. *I went to Walmart and bought her some smaller handheld toys at this time.*
* Sometimes difficult to access the G-tube/Mini-button area on her stomach, even with the cut out spot they made for us in the hospital
* Had to re-tape around the back and crotch areas often
* She got over heated because of the cast, so Michael bought her a mini "Vornado" fan for the crib

First time at the pediatrician in Sarasota

She had to balance on the Boppy and a towel before Michael got the big foam roller (below)

Along with the tape, you can see that we stuffed Emma's regular sized diaper (2s) inside the front and back of the cast, and then put a size 6 diaper around the whole cast. That one never got wet or dirty.

Visitors (Mrs. Patty/ GiGi & my friend Alex) before Thanksgiving:
>> Our trach care pictures above were taken by Alex too!

Emma showing off/ proud of her repeated body scooting!

Thanksgiving in Bradenton pictures:

Baby Yoda/Grogu float!

>> Here are some other posts that I wrote last year where she had her Hip Spica Cast: you can read a late November post when we picked out our live Christmas tree, an early Christmas post with my family, and then the post from mid December where she got the cast taken off in Delaware.

And in case I don't post any other recent pictures for a while, here is a picture of Emma STANDING with her KAFO braces in our current apartment on the 4th of July (2022), a couple weeks ago! :)