Our house was filled with visitors from Dec. 26-January 11.
We are suppose to have Lucas wear his new legs/feet on a pretty regular schedule to get him adjusted to them. Since we have been in and out and all about over the past 2 weeks, it has been hard to stay on a schedule of any kind. So, we are starting with more effort now to do this.
The therapist at Shriners gave us a schedule that looks something like this:
day 1--30 minutes 3xper day separated by at least 30 minutes between
day 2--45 min. 3x perday
day 3--1 hour 3x per day
day 4--90 min 3x per day
we do this for 2 weeks as we increase the time.
then we move into longer stretches each day the next several weeks so that it's more of an all day thing.
Once he has them on he really cruses around quite well and independently. Although stairs are very slow.
He was very excited about getting his legs/feet. BUT we have been struggling a little bit. He wears them for 30 minutes and gets some reddish spots on the inside of his knees and complains about them hurting. We cannot seem to get past the 30-40 minute stretches. AND he is doing really great with bending his left leg in a "natural" sort of way, but with his right leg he walks like a soldier. He won't bend it when he has them on.
Some of it could be just needing to get used to them like a new pair of shoes. We don't want blisters, or spots that are going to cause real soreness. But, some of it he may have to "push through" too.
Problem number 2...
We can get the right leg on without much problem. But, the left one is really hard to get on. And we had an incident one of the first days where Peter (without knowing) pushed a little too hard and really hurt the bottom of his leg. Now he is very gun shy about that leg and to be honest it is hard to get on. We struggle everyttime.
Now that we are on a more regular schedule, we are going to try to find a physical therapist close by, but I kind of would like to just take a trip up to Shriners to see what they say. Not sure if some of this is an adjustment to the prosthetics and some of it is mind over matter, so to speak.
So, it's not quite smooth sailing quite yet. We will get there I'm sure, because he really is seeing the advantage of being taller.
The other "hitch" is that he cruses around quite well without 'anything' on. He RUNS around the house and "no feet" doesn't stop him much. The thing that is inconvenient about that is me needing to carry him when we go places. 42 lbs is small for a 7 year old, but my back thinks it is plenty "big".
After Peter's P90X Extreme, 42 pounds should feel like nothing.
ReplyDeleteI think I'm the one that needs the weight training.=)
DeleteGet therapy ASAP..is making a huge difference for Joseph PLUS you aren't the "bad guy" making all the work.
ReplyDeleteAs to the leg being tight...could be that his swelling isn't down as good as it should be. Is it his insert that is tight or the leg..not sure what kind of set up you have. Or is the insert not sliding into the leg properly?
While carrying him is a bonding thing...gets old real fast!
Chris, it seems we've got the insert figured out. It's the leg going on that is causing the "problem". As I was taking it off today I paid close attention and it seems to almost comfortably turn on it's way off. We've been trying to put it on "straight" so next round today I'm going to try that little turn and see if it helps.
ReplyDeleteJoe is supposed to wear a nylon between his leg and the insert to reduce friction...don't know if that would help you out...yeah, when they get jumpy about working the leg on and off, it takes a lot of patience.
ReplyDeleteLucas wears a long white sock underneath the insert (they called them "stump shrinkers" when he first got his cast off). It goes all the way up his thigh. Right now that is ok, but in summer I'm sure that is going to get hot---I'll probably be cutting them down.
ReplyDeleteGiving that left leg a little bit of a turn helped later in the day. So, we are making progress.