My Louies Are Home

Louie III and Louie IV took the trip to the Shriner's alone this time. I really didn't feel I could get away from work, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I got pretty sick and would have not been able to go into that hospital with my little guy. But his daddy was there with him, when his cast was removed. They stayed there for 2 days. Daddy got to see Lil Louie's excitement when he realized that "finally" that cast was coming off. He learned many extremely important stretches. Lil Louie was fitted for what they call a sling but looks more like a splint to me. He has to constantly wear his sling, except during therapy and bath time. The sling was molded to 80 degrees. It's so amazing to see his arm bent. I'm still not quite used to it. He does have a big incision it's about 3 1/2 inches right now. But it's a pretty clean cut; once it heals a little more we'll
be able to begin scar massage to help minimize the length of his scar. Where most people would have wrinkled elbows, Lil Louie has a cut there that enabled him to bend his elbow. We're always asked when his next surgery will be so I'm sure some of you have the same question so I'll answer it here: we don't know. We don't know if the next step is muscle transfer to this arm or if it'll be a tendon release on his right arm. We usually don't know what are next step is going to be until right before we take it. He does go back in 4 weeks. But so far he's doing really well. He's not quite sure what to do, as he's had to do without bending his elbows for the first 17 months of his life, but we're sure once he realizes the additional utilization he has gained he'll incorporate that into his world.