"Mom, did ya have to take off the cast?!"

The serial casting is going amazingly well (knock on plaster). Max is literally running around with his cast—and he is faster than ever. It's giving him good support, better than the inward-turning foot was. Another benefit is that the cast is a very handy place to write "Max eats spaghetti sauce," given that I have refused to have that permanently tattooed on his body. Showering is less of a pain than I thought; we have a blue elastic-topped baggie that slips over his leg and keeps water out.

I had to take off the cast last night, because Max was getting a new one. The idea is that each week the cast gets increasingly stiff and angled a bit more so that ultimately, his foot will be at a complete 90 degree angle (the ideal).

As I started to unravel the cast Max shook his head "no" furiously: He did not want it to come off. Go figure. I promised him he'd get a new one the next day and that I would immediately write "Max eats spaghetti sauce" on it with a Purple Sharpie. He calmed down and I carried on.

After it was off, I noticed that Max's foot seemed a lot more straight. When he walked, it was flat on the ground instead of arched up on the side; to my eye, it looked a lot better. The physical therapist confirmed it. She said it wasn't common to see so much improvement in the first week but that's Max for you, defying the odds.

Max will have these casts for a few more weeks. Then he'll get an overnight cast that slips on, to be used indefinitely. IN PURPLE!

Something tells me he's never going to want to take that thing off.