good bye blue cast

we made our 3 week visit to hershey today. we were pretty certain that the cast would come off and toby was more than ready! here he is showing it off one last time in the elevator on the way up. in this office, you do a whole lot of waiting. we were there almost 2 1/2 hours...so, aaron and toby read lots of books.
the first person that we saw was the nurse. she came in and cut off the cast. toby liked the "tickler" as they called it.
once she got through the cast, there was lots of cottony stuff. he had a plaster cast on the under side of his arm and then it was all wrapped in the cotton. it was really heavy!

once they got all of the casting off, there was lots of the wrap stuck to his little arm. he had a lot of blisters and very dry skin. here is a not-so-close shot of the 2 large pins sticking out. aaron got a closer one, but it almost makes me sick! the process was getting less fun for toby at this point.we headed over for some quick x-rays at this point and then back to our room. we saw the physicians assistant today and he was astonished at tobys healing. he said that the bone growth was like he had been in a cast for 3 months instead of 3 weeks...so, it was totally healed and the pins could come out. that was to be easy...

i got one picture as they took our the first pin...that one was easy. the second one was NOT. it took some effort, twisting, and a few tries. toby screamed and said "help me" a lot. it was hard to watch and not be able to do anything. after it was over, he told the doctor that it hurt A LOT. out great nurse saved the day with graham crachers and juice, so things did improve from there.

after the surgeon came in to check him out, we were given some instructions to help toby start to use his arm again and we were off. he is totally healed and is able to use his arm when he feels ready. we are to keep the dressing on for 3 days and are not to get it wet or allow much use for a week...then he is back to normal! who would have ever thought that a fall from the sliding board would have ended up with all of this?! i am proud of what all he has come through...and how he has still been able to make everyone laugh! when we got home, adin was waiting and wanted to hear all about it...he is tobys biggest cheerleader and they were glad to talk and play after a few hours apart!