Orthotics casting and measuring

Today after school, Deb came from Biomedics to do some casting and measuring on the boys.  Colin went first.  First came the AFOs (ankle foot orthotics--supposed to help keep his foot and ankle flexible and straight and not turned down).  This is not Colin's favorite part.  His hands and feet immediately became drenched with sweat and his heart rate skyrocketed.  At one point his heart rate hit 185!  This is not a good thing.  Immediately after the casting material came off he went back down to almost his normal; 110-120 something.  Next, she measured him for TLSO (Thoracolumbosacral orthosis-which is a back brace that is supposed to support him when he's sitting up or standing).  Instead of casting him for this, which would take a lot of repositioning and fussing, she makes dots on him with marker and then measures him.  He loves this part!  He wanted more and more dots.  He's funny that way.  Whenever he does art and gets paint or marker on himself he doesn't want it washed off.  The fun part is picking the strap and Velcro colors.  And, this time he was able to pick a colored plastic part as well.  They now have colored/decorative transfers that can be put on the main plastic part of the orthotic.  Colin picked some wild swirly blue and then some snake skin looking ribbon to go over the Velcro straps.  He watched some Batman on the ipad while we worked on him.  He half watched, half complained and half laughed the entire time.  He is a weird kid, lol!

Casey was next.  He was measured for new night time leg braces that help stretch out his knees. They have tension, which we can change, and get them straighter and straighter.  In Casey's case, we just hope to keep him from regressing.  He is pretty contracted.  He sits so much in his chair, that it's been hard to keep him flexible in his knees and his hips, too.  We can only do what we can do!  Casey immediately picked out the blue under the sea transfer for his braces.  It may look weird with the leg braces but the only people that will see them are the night nurses, lol.  He got blue camouflage ribbon to go with them.   He tolerated everything with minor fussing.  Deb is really very efficient and quick.

Now we wait until April 11th and she'll come and do a home visit to see how things fit.  We'll also mark the opening we want for Colin's g-tube and she'll take it back to the shop to cut it out.  She'll come back again to fit the TLSO and do a check up on how Colin's AFOs are fitting and how Casey's nighttime braces are fitting.

Neither boy had the best day at school.  Casey was loud and didn't want to do much work.  Colin was distracted and not into doing much.

Nurse Nancy won't be back.  Still out for her arm.  I don't think she'll be back until mid-April, after her vacation :(   We'll have nurse Brooke for the first two weeks of April, so we'll be okay...Colin will miss his Nana L though.

We're bracing for a snow storm tonight.  I may end up keeping Casey home from school tomorrow.  We'll see what the night brings.