Cast Update

Hannah got the shoulder-to-hand cast off yesterday, which was a relief to her, but the skin on her inner elbow looks like she has road-rash.



Hannah tried to wash her arm after the big cast came off, but the skin was tender and it still hurt at the site of the break, so she was only able to do a cursory job of it.

When the doctor discovered that it was still hurting, he ordered us back to the cast room to get a different type of cast on her lower arm. I guess it is like a splint—the nurse made a hard form for the top side of her arm and then used a bandage to wrap it on to her arm. She’ll wear it for another week, and hopefully by then the healing will be far enough underway that she won’t need the cast anymore.



(You can see the cast under the soda bottle.)

So now she’s had a blue, a white, and a pink cast. If anything else happens, there’s only yellow left, and then she’ll have had the full assortment available at our hospital.

Activated!

Hannah got her activator last Tuesday, and I thought people might be interested in how that is going for her.

The activator looks like what we used to call a retainer. It is removable, with wires that hook onto her teeth and smooth plastic pieces that fit against her palate on top and under her tongue on the bottom. Hannah picked clear plastic with glitter for her activator.

The purpose of the activator is to pull her lower jaw forward, thereby stretching the jaw muscles and training them to hold her jaw in the new position. This is to correct for an overbite, or as the orthodontist explained it, her teeth don’t match up properly. Each top tooth should sit on the crack between two bottom teeth underneath it. Mine do; Hannah’s don’t.

In addition, her jaw was popping. It doesn’t pop with the activator in, though, so that is one area where we can see an immediate improvement.

So without further ado, here is her profile without the activator in:



And here is her profile with the activator in:



And here is the activator in her mouth:



As she says, all she needs to do is sharpen those prongs, and she’ll give herself a tongue piercing! (And no, I have no idea what they are for.)

She is on school vacation for 2 more weeks, so she is wearing the activator most of the day at home. When school starts again, she won’t wear it to school, but she should still be able to get in her 12-14 hours per day. It doesn’t really look all that bad, but she drools something terrible. (You do not want to know about the time she sneezed with it in.) It also affects her speech, as her Aunt Kee discovered on the phone the other day.

Then tomorrow she gets the cast off her arm. Hoorah! She can finally get wet all over, and I have threatened to lock her in the shower and pour shower gel on her over the top of the locked doors if she doesn’t do it herself. Today she thought she had gotten cracker crumbs inside her cast (how?!), so tomorrow’s uncasting may be quite unpleasant. Wish us luck!