Calvin's Little Wing Is On The Mend, Plus Now He Doesn't Stink

On January 14 at approximately 5:30 pm, Calvin Mitchell Konchar fell down off the half wall in the basement and broke his wee arm. It was semi-tragic. I was able to diagnose the break using my fool-proof system. It is called "let me look at you". When a person breaks a bone there is a certain look that registers on the face. It is a combination of pain/sweat/terror that is unmistakable. (I have utilized this technique TWICE and have been spot-on every time!)

So after a truly farcical trip to both urgent care and an orthopedist, we finally got Calvin into a cast. Dr "I totally used to play football in college" Lousk employed the old-school method for setting the bone, namely, using his well-over 6' of brute strength to squeeeeeeze Calvin's arm into alignment (while the new cast was still wet). It was very exciting! Calvin resorted to inappropriate laughter. Typical.

It was fun for a while, that cast. In the beginning, Calvin was supremely pleased with it. First of all, showering was strictly forbidden and bathing was drastically reduced, so that was worth the price of admission right there. Plus for a kid who enjoys sitting, this thing was the bomb. He couldn't even button his own shirt come Sundays, so any kind of "work" was out of the question. Unfortunately Calvin isn't a lefty, so he still had to write in class.

But then. The cast started to stink. And it got itchy. Plus it was rather hard and scratchy and uncomfortable. Did I mention it stunk? For the love of Pete's sake! that thing was rank. By 3 weeks in, nobody wanted to sit next to him. And now for a somewhat-relevant tangent:

When I was 8 I broke my arm (for the second time.) It was just a hairline
fracture, but it required me to wear a full plaster cast for over 6 weeks.
In Clovis. In the summer. I don't have particularly
fond memories from that time . But it was only a few years
ago that I learned the full truth from my mother: My cast stunk
so horribly that no one would sit next to me at meals. And the pervasive
odor was so aggressive that it caused my mother to completely lose all
her mental faculties, as was evidenced by the fact that
she dumped a small bottle of very cheap perfume down the cast in hopes that
it would improve the smell. Surprisingly, that
just made it worse. Who could have predicted this?

Back to today: Today Calvin got to say "Goodbye" to his cast (and "Hello" to arm funk.) Here is Calvin after the Dr. said the cast was coming off!


Here is another brilliant photo taken by mom: A picture of the X-Ray monitor! You can see the bone still looks a little wonky, which Dr. Lousk said would heal itself. I choose to believe him.



Nurse Diane (or Vicky or Pam or Donna--I wish I could remember her name!) is cutting the cast off Calvin. Here Calvin is fighting the urge to melt into a puddle of nervous giggles.

Yay! The cast is off and the saw didn't even sever an artery! (Maybe another time I will tell you the story of when Mark was two and had to get his cast cut off his foot.)

So the worst part for me was definitely when the nurse told me to use the antibacterial soap to wash the "cast mold" off Calvin's arm. Let me just remind you I AM NOT SQUEAMISH. Pie is. But it was really horrifying and I hope you are not eating lunch while you read this. And that is all I'm going to say. It was horrible and yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as "cast mold".