Casting

I always forget how hard it is to function when you get woke up every couple of hours at night. Because of Corbin's CP he has too much tone in his muscles. When he doesn't have his AFO's in his shoes (basically braces that help him stand flat-footed, not on tiptoes), he walks and runs on his tiptoes. Now that he is going through a growth spurt, if we don't do something to help loosen the muscles they won't grow with his body and then the muscles will be too short and he won't be able to stand on flat feet. Anyway, the doctors for three years now have been talking about Botox injections, which I REALLY do not want to do. Instead we opted for the less invasive method of serial casting. Basically they cast his legs a week at a time so his muscles are forced to stretch. After a week they remove the casts to see if any progress was made, and then put new casts on.
We did not like the idea knowing that Corbin would be uncomfortable during this time, but also knowing we had to do something. To make matters worse we had to put the knee immobilizer on him at night time to help stretch all of the leg muscles while sleeping.
The first day Corbin had his casts on he didn't seem bothered. He is so used to his legs being bothered with that he didn't seem to notice a difference. The first night we didn't have to put the knee immobilizer on him so that he would have the night to get used to sleeping with the casts on. When I went in to check on him, sure enough, he had his legs bent all of the way so that his muscles weren't all the way stretched. I just stood there crying watching him sleep, knowing how uncomfortable he was and it had just started.
The next day Corbin realized those casts were not coming off soon. He grabbed my hand and put it on his cast. I know he wanted them off so I just tickled him and played with him until he forgot what he wanted me to do. That night we put the knee immobilizer on waiting, not expecting to sleep at all. To my surprise we woke up the next morning, Corbin had slept through the night without a problem. I had put it on his right leg, knowing that it wasn't as tight as his left leg.
After a full night of sleep, I was encouraged and wasn't concerned when I put the knee immobilizer on his left leg. We weren't asleep an hour before I heard him crying. I calmed him down, got him back to sleep, and then went back to bed myself. An hour later we had Brittan by our bed telling us that Corbin was crying. The third time this happened, I took it off. The doctor had told us that sleep was important also, and if he couldn't sleep to take it off. However, I think it had been on long enough that it had gotten too painful and he couldn't go back to sleep. So, I picked him up and rocked him to sleep in the recliner and we slept there for about an hour until I was sure he could sleep. The rest of the week was similar and by the end of the week, we were all exhausted.
I took Corbin into his appointment and after they had removed the casts they allowed him to walk around and play for a few minutes before putting on the second set of casts. I have never seen him walk flat footed without his AFO's. I couldn't believe how much of a difference one horrible week in casts could do. The doctor was very happy with his progress. He told us he would only need one more week of casting and that we didn't have to use the knee immobilizer at night. YEAH!!