After nearly five weeks in an arm cast Payton is ready to say goodbye to her purple plaster club accented with lime green stripes.
This was day one when it was still clean.
Tuesday is the momentous occasion. Payton has developed her own calculation for how many days until drill down. She doesn’t count the current day and she doesn’t count the actual day, so she’s telling people today she has one more day. It’s an interesting modified new math, but being one that never had a great relationship with math, I’m all for her using whatever calculation works for her.
Throughout the process she’s had some interesting questions that she’s asked multiple times. Not sure if she thought I’d answer differently over time, or she just needed reassurance.
Since I too lugged around a full arm cast as a teenager, and in the summer, I have some fairly direct experience. But, when the whining and the “woe is me” gets too much, I remind her that I wore mine for 10 weeks, and had to walk up hill in the sunshine every day, and I was deprived of water and food, and ants crawled in my cast, and my arm stunk so no one would play with me, and I lost an entire summer, so five weeks is doable – so there. Okay, so I did wear it for 10 weeks and I did lose an entire summer. For the rest of those things, I suppose I’m elaborating a bit. But, I bet I did stink.
Payton’s top five questions she asked repeatedly and the answers in my head that I, of course, filtered and revised before I spoke:
1. Payton: Will I be able to straighten my arm?
Me: No, I’m afraid it will be quite some time. I think it took me two years before I was able to extend my arm.
2. Payton: Will the drill cut me when they take the cast off?
Me: A bit, but the bleeding won’t be too bad. I remember passing out from the sight of it, but came to fairly quickly.
3. Payton: Will my arm be white?
Me: Well, actually it will be more purple than white. Whatever color plaster you choose is the color you can expect your skin to be. But don’t worry, by taking a shower every day for the next year will clear things right up.
4. Payton: Will my arm be more hairy?
Me: I don’t mean to alarm you but we’ll need to take dad’s razor to you and basically shave it. It may take a few shaves, but the growth will eventually slow down.
5. Payton: Why won’t it stop itching?
Me: You’ve probably got a bug or two in there crawling around, but don’t worry they can’t live in there for more than a few days.
I promise I didn’t provide any of those clever answers above, but I’ll admit there were times when I was oh, so tempted. I think I’m just as excited for her to get that cast off. Tuesday here we come!
