Life in a cast

Addie has been casted for 4 and 1/2 weeks now. We were having quite a bit of problems keeping her first cast dry which lead to a skin infection which lead to a new cast on Sept. 30th. We are doing much better with this new one! It fits much better and she is feeling pretty good about it. We are changing the diaper every 3-4 hours with multiple diapers in order to keep in tight against her skin so we do not get the cast wet again. It has been working so far although I am excited to get it off so we can stop setting the alarm for the middle of the night to change her diaper; waking a sleeping baby is never fun! She has learned to army crawl with it on so she can get around. The casting process has been great for her left arm! We have doubled up and are doing OT 2x a week during this time. The cast keeps her stuck on her back or her side which eliminates gravity allowing her to move her arm more than she can when sitting which is an awesome opportunity for strengthening. The therapists have been pleased with her movement and we are praying that the doctor will be when we return for her follow-up Nov 3rd. They will make the final decision on another nerve transfer at that point so we are trying to work as much as we can to see if strength building with gravity eliminated will help her be able to use her arm more against gravity when she can sit up and eventually stand. We are open to doing the surgery if it will improve her motion but there is always risks involved in any surgery and so we are hoping to see what she can recover without surgical measures. Yet as always we know that God has a plan and is working in the midst of this to bring about glory. Some days it is easy to wonder why He didn't just heal her because we know that He is capable and has done that in some cases. But then I am reminded that to have faith you must have hope. If everything happened immediately and exactly as we expected there would be no hope and with no hope you have no faith because " faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1.  Faith requires hope the more you have to hope for the more you have to trust God and have faith in His plans and His timing. So we are holding onto our hope as He is stretching and growing our faith because the Bible reminds us that God is faithful and deserving of our hope. "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful" Hebrews 10:23. The cast is scheduled to come off Oct. 21st at that point Addie will be in a brace for an undetermined amount of time. The brace will allow her to take baths and sit up two things she cannot do in her cast so we are looking forward to that! We are also adding speech therapy to her eating therapy and hoping to see some more progress in that regard. She is actively trying to communicate more but her levels of communication are still very behind for her age. It has been a busy few weeks her adjusting to her in a cast and the extra care she requires and we have also started homeschooling the boys. Michael is doing really well and catching on really quick with his school work. Stephen likes to do what Michael is doing but isn't really into school except for science experiments! It has been a crazy fall but I am so excited to see what God is going to bring out of this time in Addie's life because "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him" Romans 8:28.