marydell | Casting complete

We spent a nice afternoon at the Rehab Institute today--first they made a plaster cast of Charlie's left arm, and then they showed us the hand options. We chose the hand with the moveable thumb, and it seems like it will work out well--it's soft enough not to injure him, we think, but firm enough that he won't be able to take big bites out of it. Because he will totally try to. It's a good match in size to his other hand, except that the thumb is disproportionately large, because it's really a clamp. That's cool, though--the hand is a bit stylized, so the thumb size only looks strange when we hold it up to his real hand. And we're not trying to have him pass; just to have a nice-looking and useful artificial limb.

Then we had lunch in the cafeteria, where Charlie was a hit with the other diners, fortunately since he's taken to screeching. Then we met with a lady from their life-coordination department to talk about physical & occupational therapy--they are too far away for us to take Charlie there for regular PT/OT, but they will work with and train any OT/PT who has pediatric experience and wants to work with Charlie. Very cool.

We go again in two weeks to get some basic OT instruction--a lot of pediatric therapy is done by parents as part of daily life, so getting instruction from the therapists is critical--and to check the fit of the arm socket. It'll be a clear socket that goes over his arm, that they'll attach the full limb and hand to. As he grows they can upsize the socket once or twice without needing to make a whole new arm.

The life-coordination lady had a different idea about the elbow than the prostheticist, so hopefully they will talk and figure out what the right plan is before the next appointment. While they figure that out, I'll be shopping for a local therapist for him.

I'm nervous about getting everything figured out but it's exciting to really be doing this, finally!