The latest with the leg

Bennett got his cast off a few weeks ago, right in the middle of ski week/mid-winter break, and let me tell you how excited I was for that thing to be removed.  Do you know just how stinky an active, six year old boy's leg/foot cast can get after five weeks?  I do.  Soooooooo stinky that you will avoid sitting next to your own child on the couch, because breathing in that fowl stench gets your gag reflex going like a puddle of vomit on the bathroom floor.  So stinky that everything that cast touches on a regular basis -- bedding, couch cushions, carpet, cast shoe, ottoman-- seems like it should be burned it reeks so bad.  So stinky that even though it's chillier than it's been all winter, you have to roll down the windows of your van as you drive just so you can breathe.  I'm feeling sick just thinking about it.

Bennett loved watching that thing get sawed off and seeing all the dirt crusted on his leg underneath.  Then he stood up.  Uh oh.  Not quite what he'd expected. "I want my crutches back" even though he hadn't used those things in weeks, which didn't turn out to be such a bad thing since I forgot to bring his other shoe.  Oops.  Poor kid.  I think he'd honestly expected to just run out of that cast room as soon as it came off, despite all our attempts at explaining muscle atrophy and how he might not be able to play soccer for a while.  He kept telling me, "My leg feels weird.  And squishy."  The x-ray brought good news, however: the bone build-up around the fracture was "superb" as the doc called it, and they wouldn't need to re-cast his leg (I didn't even realize that was an option).  The doctor said the squishy feeling would go away and he'd be back walking on it in a day or so.  He also gave a strict mandate to not play sports for THREE WEEKS, which in Bennett's world translates to three more long weeks of torture.

I expected Benito to nurse the leg a bit the first few days, but five days later I started to get concerned when the strange limp he'd developed persisted and didn't appear to be going anywhere.  Physical therapy started to loom large in my mind, harbinger of yet another something to devour my time and co-payments, so I took action.  Every day B came home from school, I'd make him do calf raises on the step in our living room, make him do high knees to practice putting full weight on his weak leg, and make him walk the length of the house keeping his foot straight.  Not to mention my incessant reminders to "Straighten your foot," "Walk normal," and "Put your weight on it," anything to get that leg stronger and in full use.  I'm happy to report that the gimp has lost the limp and seems to be back to normal.  He's just biding his time with the no sports dictum, which means two soccerless soccer practices and possibly one benched game.  Not bad for a kid whose leg cracked not even two full months ago.