Unexpectedly Castless

Starbaby is unexpectedly cast-free today. I had had a niggling worry that his cast was slipping, but I was such a mess after Tuesday's hospital appointment that I didn't properly register exactly where his toes were, so I wasn't totally sure... but this morning it was very obvious that his toes had all but disappeared inside the cast. Definite slippage.

After asking advice from the lovely ladies on the Happy Feet Talipes facebook group (which has been an amazing source of support for me since last November) we decided to soak of Starbaby's cast in the bath. A slipped cast can result in sores and won't be correcting the foot as it should be.

Here's Starbaby's disappearing toes...

Starbaby thought all his Christmasses had come at once when we put him in the bath!  It felt very wrong to be getting his cast after 13 weeks of protecting it from the water... but it needed to be done.

Soon after I took this photo, I jumped in with him as it became obvious it was going to take a fair time and Daddy's back was starting to ache from leaning over. For a while I thought we were going to end up taking a trip to A&E with a sopping wet cast, but then I managed to find the end of the strip of plaster and after 25 minutes of (gently) yanking and peeling, his leg was free. 

His foot is definitely no more corrected than it was last Tuesday, and may even be worse. It is less swollen, thankfully... but I assume that is why the cast slipped. I questioned on Tuesday whether it was worth re-casting him when he was so swollen, but was told they didn't want to lose the work the tenotomy had done... but in casting a swollen foot, which then went down and caused the plaster to slip, we have ended up losing anything the tenotomy did anyway. To be honest, after seeing his foot last week I question whether the tenotomy did anything good at all... hmmm....

The top of his foot is more sore than normal - I think despite it having a dressing over it, the slipped cast has rubbed him there.

The bottom of his foot is still very curved... I don't feel we're close to full correction at all, yet now, nearly 2 weeks post-tenotomy, most babies are going into BnB.

Now we need to think very carefully about what to do next...