Adam's exoskeleton

A couple of weeks ago Adam was running while being chased by a friend. As he turned a corner, he felt something not right and stopped and realized his ankle was hurting. We assumed he had sprained or twisted his ankle in the running. The ankle never swelled up however. He spent the next week trying to rest it and did a lot of limping. By the end of the week, we decided to take him to the doctor to find out why it wasn't improving. Being a Saturday, we had to go to Urgent Care. We prefer not to go there because as a general rule they operate very slowly. This time was no different. Every step of the way there was waiting. Anyway, after some discussion and Xrays, the Dr. thought it looked like there was a very small fracture in an ankle bone. She put a soft cast on and gave Adam crutches and referred us to the orthopedic department. Adam was not too thrilled about wearing a cast and using crutches. And mostly around home he scooted on the floor rather than use the crutches. We all tried to think of a fun way for Adam to respond to people's questions about his cast. One sister suggested that he say he wanted an exoskeleton!


A few days later we got in touch with the orthopedic department and the Dr. there had looked at the Xrays and said there was no fracture. An appointment was made for a few days later. We took off the soft cast and Adam still took it easy as best he could. When we met with the Ortho Dr., he determined that Adam had strained a tendon on the inside of his foot, one that connects to the bottom of the foot up to the ankle (and helps hold up the arch). He said the only way to really heal it was to give it a 100% rest, and for a child that means a real cast. Fortunately, it would be a walking cast, so Adam wouldn't have to use crutches. So off we were to the Cast Room and that was fun to see so many people in there at different stages of getting casts on. Adam had a choice of about 10 colors for his cast and he chose black. The girls were disappointed when he got home because they were hoping to sign and draw on it.

So Adam will wear this cast for two weeks and then go back to have it taken off. Hopefully there will be great improvement. The Dr. thinks he may want him to wear arch supports in his shoes for a while to make sure there is extra support. In the meantime Adam is sorry he will miss swimming opportunities, and he has found that taking a bath has gotten quite interesting.