... left until Starbaby has his second tendon op (along with a bit of 'tweaking' inside, apparently). We are absolutely loving having him cast-free, and I'm glad to say that even though when we were in the middle of his 16 weeks of casts it didn't feel much fun, the memory is very quickly fading into the past and it definitely hasn't affected Starbaby long-term - that's the main thing.
He's doing really, really well. His hands and arms are continuing to gradually improve, and I'd estimate that he currently has about 50-60% use of his right hand and 10% on his left - it may not sound much, but it's a lot more than he did a few months ago. He is getting better at picking up some food with his right hand, and uses his left hand a lot to 'brace' things against and support the work of his right hand. His arms are still generally quite weak but it isn't affecting him too much. We have some physio exercises to work on arm strength so that crawling is a possibility in the future, although I think that is still a while off. He rolls both ways like a pro, though.
Today Starbaby had his first proper blood test - he had 40-50, maybe more, heel prick blood tests when he was in NICU, but he'd never had a 'needle' one until this morning. I requested some numbing cream last time we were at the hospital, which although he had a bit of a reaction to it, meant he felt no pain and that made it a much better experience for both of us. He wasn't too impressed at having his arm held still, but I breastfeed him throughout (well, he popped on and off to see what was going on!) so that was a good distraction. It was testing his level of creatine kinase - if the result is high then it means it's likely he does have a muscular condition like muscular dystrophy. I'm expecting it to be high as he does clearly have something going on with his muscles, and if it is it'll mean we're one step closer to a diagnosis and the future seeming a little clearer.
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