Our life with the cast is hopefully over! Sier still wants Shaun to come over to put a cast on, but we all really know it's because Sier secretly wants to play with all of Shauns awesome toys! Fo
r those of you who don't know who Shaun is, he is Siers Occupational Therapist...who is the most amazing person I have ever met. Sier loves him... more than he loves Santa Claus. Shaun introduced us to the casting therapy when Sier was about 18 months old, this is how it works: You put a cast on his right arm, making sure he has no use of it at all- that makes him use his left hand, which needs the help. The first time Sier ever had a cast on was HARD for him and for everybody around him. He couldn't feed himself, play with his toys the way he wanted to, he was totally helpless (even more than a normal developing 18 month old). We did the casts, had some red ones, black ones, and a ton of blue ones...I think we had a white one in there somewhere...we tried to talk him into a pink or purple one, but he would never go with the idea. The castings
started out with him wearing it for 2 weeks, then off for about 6 weeks. That lasted about a year, then we got more aggressive...he would have one on for 3 weeks, and off for 4, then we would do it again. Nothing stopped us from him having a cast, we learned fast that we couldn't plan it around our lives, and we couldn't plan our lives around the casts, so we dealt. If he wanted to play outside, we would put an old sock over it to keep it clean. When he ate, we put
a sock over it to clean...he really had a sock over it 95% of the time because lets face it, he's a little boy who LOVES to get into things. We have a cover for it so we can bathe him, you just put it over the cast and suck the air out...it was the best thing $35.00 could ever buy for us. One time he put the cast in the toilet, so Shaun had to drive out and take it off...he made sure that Sier understood that that's NOT the way to get out of a cast, and put one right back on him! When Sier turned 3 he was out of the program that he was involved in, which meant NO MORE SHAUN! But since he is a great guy, he snuck over to our house when we called him and put m
ore casts on the CRAZY boy. (he asks for them!) Well, we haven't done a cast since April of this year because it's getting hard. Sier realizes now that when he has one on he can't do the same things as other kids, he was starting to get frustrated with it, and would always ask Shaun to take it off as soon as it got on. This never happened before. Before when he would have them on he would just sit on the counter top, put his arm up, and Waite for Shaun to do
the cast...no turning back...he wouldn't complain, it wouldn't slow him down, he had been at the point for over a year where he could feed himself, color, play, anything he wanted to do he figured out how to do it with his left hand. I think he loved having it on, because it was a built in sword...I coulnd't tell you how many times he has hit me or other people with that thing! Sorry for all of you out there that got it in face with the cast. When kids would come tell me that Sier hit them with the cast I would secretley think "well, you probably deserved it"...after all, it was his only line of defence! But there were times when he definatly was being just naughty and hit someone. But once he turned 3 it's like a switch turned on in his brain that thought "oh crap, I have this stupid cast on that doesn't let me do things as good, or as fast as I usually do...man, this really SUCKS!" He also understands a lot more, which makes a difference because when we go somewhere when he has it on, people are curiuouse and ask what happend to his arm, the conversations usually went like this "Oh! What happend to your arm, did you break it?" Sometimes I would go along with it, and sometimes I would explain it to them. It was getting to the point where if I went along with it Sier would say "No I d
idn't", or if I wouldn't tell them the truth fast enough Kip would- in the form of "No, he has brain damage" HELLO! We tell Kip all the time that it's not nice to say that, and Sier has NO idea that something like that is wrong with him..so, what do you do??? Kip is old enough that he knows something is wrong with his little brother, and we've explained it to him countless times EXACTLY what it is, and evertime he's like "oh, brain damage, no big deal." One day they'll both understand it better. Needless to
say...the casting is over. It has taught us all a lot about how the brain works, how kids are amazing and can cope in different situations, and find different solutions to problems, it has brought us patience, and laughter, and it has taught one little boy how to do things he wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. Mark and I are really lucky to have a little boy like Sier who has taught us all of these things, and who brings such happiness to us and to other people around him. We love you Sier!
Jaxon
Making cookies
