post-surgery management-child

[Guest guest]

Hi Barbara,

I have been thinking about you and Alice and wondering if she had her

surgery. Wow. Sounds like you have done tons of 'homework' and you are

going with the best. My thoughts and prayers are with you and Alice>

As for managing after the surgery, I can only speak when I was a kid

with 2 casts on: parents moved me downstairs to our guest room that had

an attached bath. I did have a wheelchair (didn't go to well on carpet,

but on the wood floors, I had fun!) I even went to Disneyland in it,

course, got alot of stares (this was 1963), but got special treatment

even then. Most all my toys, dolls, games, stuffed animals moved

downstairs too. Had alot of friends come over to play board games,

they also wanted to push me around in my wheelchair (backyard was big

and had a court - this was fun for us all) The only bummer I recall is I

couldn't swim that whole summer. I don't remember much pain, only when

the hard casts came off and I was walking on my new feet! After 6-8

weeks in hard casts, I did get walking casts, which made me taller,

which I thought was really neat, since I was entering junior high that

fall. I got tons of gifts and neat things - plus that my birthday was

that summer, so really it was a big bonanzana of neat stuff and all the

Barbie stuff one could imagine! To get me to the Dr. office, my Mom

could pull the car onto the court, then my Dad just lifted me and

wheelchair over 1 step, and to court, then Dad lifted me into the car,

folded wheelchair, off we went. Dr. office staff helped on the other

end. Feel free to email me directly, maybe I can think of other things.

I just remember I played alot of indoor boaord games and cards, learned

to sew on a machine and even tried some bread baking, although kitchen

counters were too high. We improvised.

Gretchen