Tuesday 24 June 2008

Look I Got a New Arm!

Today is the delightful day we went from this........(read all about how that occurred here!) To this
Do you think he looks happy about it?
Hands up if you like having two functioning arms!

We all went on this little trip to the hospital. I was of course thrilled. Our clothes were coordinated, we were clean, I had a husband in tow and not a single trashy tabloid in sight. We were the picture of perfect family bliss that I failed so spectacularly at being on our last trip.

I had spent the last 26 days explaining to Thomas that when they take the plaster off they'll use some special scissors to do the job. So you can imagine my joy when I took him into the plaster room only to be briefly glanced at and told that we'd have to wait longer because they needed 3 people, 2 to hold him down and 1 to operate the saw. (Cue screaming in my head as my gift goes into overdrive and I imagine detached limbs and blood shooting out of arteries all over the place, just as well we had to wait longer because I totally needed to sit down.)

So I quickly explained to Thomas that the special scissors weren't really special enough and they were actually going to use a really noisy saw and hoped for the best. Thomas has never been a big fan of white noise. Hairdryer? Terrifying, Blender? Traumatising, Hoover? Petrifying (though my mother in law did once kindly say he was probably only scared of the hoover because he didn't hear it frequently enough, ouch! See I told you she wasn't perfect!)

A nice nurse lady came along and she was prepared to remove his cast while he sat on Rob's knee and I wrestled with Eli. She switched the saw on and I held my breath while Eli shouted over and over 'My turn, my turn!' (they don't wanna miss out on anything the other is doing even if it does involve a saw and possible loss of an appendage) and Thomas reacted like nothing was going on, typical Thomas. The nurse said he was braver than most adults (which would no doubt include me!) that she deals with so promptly rewarded him with stickers. Stickers are the way to any three year old heart!

We went back to see the doctor who discharged us from his care with instruction to avoid any physical activity for 6 more weeks. That is 42 entire days.

Thomas decided to completely disregard this advice after about 17 minutes.

But he is thrilled to have a new arm!

9 lovely comments:

AMY said...

They use a saw to cut off the cast? That is scary. Congrats on Rob's new job, how nice to get a car too! Can he get David a job?

Melissa said...

How do you keep a THREE year old from doing any physical activity for 6 WEEKS?!?!?! That would be hard to manage in just 6 minutes!

Good luck with that, and YAY for a new arm! :)

Simply Shannon said...

Yay for 2 arms!
There is a little girl in my class who fractured her elbow not too long before Thomas broke his arm. She got her cast off just before I left for vacation and her doctor just gave her the ok to go on the slide again. Believe it or not- she actually DID stay off the slide the entire time. Can't say she refrained from physical activity though. 6 weeks??? Um, yeah. That's going to happen. Dumb doctors!

Shannon said...

Yeah for no cast! I remember that with Noah I was so glad to get that stinky old cast off and give him a real bath.

Anonymous said...

Glad to hear the cast removal went so smoothly. I cracked up at the vacuum cleaner comment. If that were true, my kids would be terrified of it.

Wendi said...

Yay for two functioning appendages!

We have so much in common.

I too have the "gift".

I never knew it was a gift until now.

I always thought of it as a flaw.

Gift sounds much better!

Heather @ thedomesticdiva.org said...

Congrats TWO arms again! He looks so happy about it.

thedomesticdiva.org

Anti-Supermom said...

I'm just waiting for the day when I'm with kiddos in casts.

Happy that he's so happy to have two arms again!

Science PhD Mom said...

Yay! Glad he was a champ for the cast removal--good job Thomas!