Spica Cast Removal Extravaganza

The day Eli got his cast removed was the happiest day of his parents lives.

But no, seriously.  We were beyond excited to have this torture contraption removed.  However, we couldn't get Eli to grasp the concept and he was NOT excited.  Any trip to that doctor's office is BAD NEWS for him.  He started whimpering before we even went into the door.  The only way to soothe him was to watch Curious George in the waiting room.

Most admittedly, the removal process was very scary.  It started with an x-ray (bad memories from his diagnosis), seeing the terrifying doctor again, and then some stranger came into the room wheeling creepy looking machinery.  She made him wear enormous sound canceling headphones and then brandished what looked like a vibrating pizza cutter at him.   To top it all off, the pizza cutter made the same noise as his nemesis, the vacuum cleaner.

Eli endured pure torture as his parents (the betrayers) held him down and the stranger made his whole shell vibrate.  But three minutes later, it was all off.

We realize this picture is gross.  And trust me, it smelled worse than it looks.  But we look at that cast as a fallen foe and we are proud to memorialize the defeat here.

Eli wasn't happy about anything until we got him out of that evil office, but once we got outside he became euphoric and insisted on walking (with help) down the long hall.

As for me, I was surprised that there didn't seem to be any deformity in his broken leg.  Both legs weren't as chubby as they used to be, but I was gearing up for something disturbing looking.  The only gross thing was the all the dead, not-so-clean skin that started just falling off, but one glorious bath later and that was all taken care of.

We had a wonderful weekend after the removal.  We were finally able to take Eli to the pool again, finally bathe him, finally have him sit upright by himself and play with his toys, and finally get back to walking.

Two weeks later, Eli is pretty much back to normal.  He's running, "jumping", and learning to go up and down the stairs like a grown-up.  Our home life has improved so much.  I feel, for this brief time, that mothering this kid is a breeze and I love it.

Thank you to all the friends and family that loved our stinky-casted son and supported us all through this.  We could not have done it without you.


BONUS FEATURE:
While we were visiting the Judkins we had Zach's professional picture taken by the talented Randy for Kmart's wall.  While he had the camera set up we snapped some shots of Eli too.  Feel free to feast your eyes on the cuteness below.