Annika's Arm Saga Continues

On Tuesday, I picked up Annika from school and we headed to Children's Hospital with the hope she'd have her cast removed and she'd start the "brace" phase of her recovery process. Let's just say things don't always work out as we hope they will...

In the weeks leading up to the appointment, I cautioned Annika against being 100% sure the cast would be a thing of the past. I really expected it to be done, but you just never know. We gave her really silly reasons why it might not pan out ... UFO lands on the hospital, etc. Boy, am I glad we prepped her for the possibility of the cast being around longer than that appointment because that's exactly what happened. (Much to her chagrin.)

Excited girl

At previous appointments, she had x-rays taken through her cast, which is what I'd expected this time. Nope. We went straight into the cast room and had her cast taken off. Annika was a ball of nerves and excitement leading up to the removal process. She giggled as the saw cut her cast into two pieces, and then became VERY protective of her arm... she was acutely aware of how vulnerable it was and how stiff her elbow felt.

Buh-bye green cast

It tickles!!!

Free arm!

We popped across the hall to the x-ray room and had a couple of images taken of her arm, so a proper evaluation of her progress could take place. We waited awhile for the results to be evaluated ... longer than I had expected. In hindsight, it makes sense because the providers consulted with each other before filling us in on the results. While Annika's healing bones look great in terms of angles and such, the bone growth rate isn't such that the medical team felt comfortable freeing her arm from being in a cast... yet. Because Annika is in the twilight of her childhood growth timeline, her bones are slower to rebuild themselves. (If she was 5 or 6, she'd most likely be out of her cast by now.)

After a few tears, talking through the importance of the long-term goal of a fully-healed arm in the shortest amount of time (aka, not experiencing a setback by taking her arm out of the cast too early and re-injuring it and starting the WHOLE process over), and lots of hugs, and realizing that her new cast would allow her elbow to move freely, Annika was able to move forward and picked out the colors for her new cast: 1/2 green and 1/2 pink to represent a spring flower.

Not the outcome we'd hope for, but things could be a lot worse

To ease the sting of her still-casted arm, we opted for dinner from Dick's. Let's be honest.. a cheeseburger and some greasy fries can't fix her broken arm but they can put a smile on her face! (They also made our dinner planning after an unexpectedly long ... 2 hour ... appointment very easy!)

YUM

After realizing how vulnerable her arm felt in its new cast, Annika almost seemed relieved to have an transitional cast experience. Her elbow is very stiff and she's working on remembering to use it so it can start to loosen up a bit. It's all a process and she's many steps closer to the finish line.... just not quite as far as she'd hoped. We'll return to Children's on Eric's birthday for another check-up; if her bones still hurt when they are touched, she'll stay in the cast longer. If they don't hurt, she'll graduate to the brace. Stay tuned, dear readers!