Capers of An Almost Two Year Old in a Cast

I am enjoying a moment of peace as Eli plays outside, on a warm winter day, and the rest of the Johnson’s nap. At last check, he was in the neighbor’s fort saving the United States. It is never a dull moment in the Johnson household, and last night was no exception. We ventured down the street to my good friend Jill’s house with an offer of chili for supper. As Jill and I carried on chatting and laughing, Sidney appeared out of the corner of my eye. I did a quick assessment and realized something was missing. Her cast!

Over the last day or two, the cast became looser as swelling decreased. We felt it needed to be taken care of Friday; however her thumb was still out. A resident advised it was ok to try to get through the weekend. Her cast is not to actually come off until February 1st.

As she came bounding across the room, proud of her recent freedom, my friend Jill jumped to the call. I was in a full panic mode, thinking about how gruesome the grafts might look uncovered too early. Jill had already swept Sidney into her arms and was assessing the situation. My morbid curiosity took over, and I looked at the grafts which as a side note look great. It was so strange to see her little fingers separated.

Everyone agreed keeping her hand out of any dirt was the most emergent task. Jill quickly devised that a Dixie cup would serve to keep the fingers protected but not allow anything to touch the grafts. We first put the whole hand into a medium cup then realized she might start digging at the sutures with her thumb. The larger cup was quickly replaced with a smaller cup and her thumb left out with band aids holding them on. Jill quickly found a clean tea towel and wrapped it around, using packing tape around the outside. The look was completed with some form of princess sticker.

After a tense hour waiting for a resident to call, we were on our way to Iowa City. It was already close 9pm. This actually worked well, because Sidney was asleep and not moving the fingers as much. The orthopedic resident advised to have him paged. This made the entire trip a bit shorter. There was a plane crash in Cedar Rapids the same night, so we were warned it was busy.

We were back by 2am, and my friend gladly kept Eli overnight. Their home has become an extension of our own, so I was relieved she was the one keeping Eli. Eli was thrilled with staying at his friend’s house.

Sidney no longer has her hot pink cast and was forced to get a white cast. Two residents worked to get the cast on her small arm. When the first cast was put on, the resident advised her did not think was going to stay on, so he cut it off and made another attempt. This seems to be much tighter, and we are optimistic it will stay on, because much of the swelling is down.

Sidney was a trooper through the whole thing. As she sat sucking on a Tootsie Pop at 11pm and watching old episodes of Rosanne on TV Land with Tom and I, she acted like nothing was out of the ordinary. Even as I sat in the ER, knowing our drive home was over an hour, I felt like the luckiest person in the world. While we were waiting for the resident to come in to cast her arm, I walked back into the room to see Sidney propped up on the bed with dad sitting in the chair at her bedside. She looked at me and took her free hand to pat the spot next to her on the bed, saying come sit by me mom and take a load off. These are the moments that erase three years of waiting.