didn't last a week

I had hoped to make it further without a cast incident but today the dreaded diaper blowout happened. We've been super vigilant with watching signs of pooping but this one happened in the car seat. We promised big sis a trip up to San.ta's Village in the white mountains. I am probably overcompensating but big sis has been acting out lately especially since I went away and left her with Daddy and Grandpa. We had a wonderful weekend with gorgeous weather that didn't even require a jacket. On the way home the incident occurred and I did the best I could in a parking lot. At home we had to remove her tape and wash the shirt. Then I had to go through the process of petaling and retaping the cast. Not fun at all. If this happens often I'm not sure how I will handle it. The good news is that we survived the blowout. The cast was salvaged and we go on.

Now we are busy doing the wash and getting last minute showers before Sandy gets here to ruin Halloween. We are hoping to have power but expecting to lose it.

The cast is on

I can't lie. The last week was awful. It was probably harder since I was doing it all alone in a hotel so no one else could take over for me. Our flight was delayed on the way in which fouled up E's last bath. We didn't get much sleep but I probably wouldn't have anyway. The hospital was bright and cheery and very efficient. She was in and out in less than an hour which actually went by quickly. When I got to recovery she was screaming. Poor E is usually a calm baby and doesn't cry much. The rest of the day was rough. E was either sleeping or screaming at me. It became obvious one of the issues was the trimming of the cast. This was a lesson learned. I was so upset and distracted by how upset E was after her cast that I neglected to go through the whole checklist of what I needed to know and look at before I left the hospital. I took her back in and they trimmed the top and bottom so that she could sit up (before that when I tried to make her sit the bottom dug into her thigh and the top pushed her head back). Once it was trimmed things started to get better. Next time I will know what to check and I won't leave the hospital until the cast is right.

It has been sad to watch E struggle. She is learning to sit, scoot and crawl again. She has't attempted crawling yet and sitting can be hard. She loses her balance and falls over and gets so angry. The big news is today she managed to scoot around on the kitchen floor and get into things she wasn't supposed to. That made me so happy to see and now I know that life will return to some semblance of normal with time.

Now for the stats... E's curve was 47* in August. We didn't get a before xray so we aren't sure what we were at on casting day but it was most likely worse (it looked worse through our pictures at least). The good news is that in her cast they achieved complete correction. Her spine is straight!!!!!

The next cast is in December. I still don't have the exact date but it should be early in the month.

4 more baths

There are only 4 more evening baths before E's cast. After that there will be 7 weeks with no bath. I'm trying to prepare for our trip. I have a few bibs to try out that are more waterproof than our current batch of bibs. I bought new tops in a size larger that I hope will fit once the cast is on. Just to complicate things E has a cold. I am hoping last night was the worst of it. We need to keep her in a bubble until Tuesday.

One week to go

I haven't had my act together on this so I had to buy E's cast duct tape at T.arget rather than ordering the pattern of my choice online. She is either getting cupcakes or pink paisley (for those not in the know duct tape is used to waterproof casts). I know it isn't very halloweeny but I hope for it to be cute at least. I am so sad that our cuddles will be impeded by a cast. DH and I are fighting to get cuddle time in while we still can. Our other issue is that E is finally starting to get teeth. She is a snot covered drooling mess. I am hoping these teeth hurry up so that we don't end up canceled. I can't even imagine flying all the way to Cincy and then not getting the cast. We also have Grandpa flying up from Arkansas to watch big sis. It is all very complicated.

two weeks

In less than two weeks my baby will be in her first cast (barring any issues with colds or fevers). I alternate between acceptance and freaking out over everything. It is made so much harder by the fact that I will be alone. It is hard to not start to resent this but the situation is that DH took a new job and only has 2 days off saved up at this point. That won't even cover one trip. On top of that trying to find a hotel at a decent price but apparently as explained by the nice woman at hotel reservations the combo of the campaign and the possibility of their baseball team getting into the world series is driving prices up and availability down. Ug. This makes me dislike politics and baseball even more than I do if that is possible. At this point I only have our flights lined up. Maybe that makes it seem a little less real.

I suppose the first cast will be the hardest. I have no idea how I am going to keep it clean for 7 weeks. It makes me sad that now that E is starting to love splashing in the bath we will have to switch to sponge baths which I am certain she will hate. She has started crawling a bit and I wonder how the cast will impact that progress. We will learn soon enough. It is weird because it feels like it has been so long since E's diagnosis in August and yet it feels like time is so close.