Cast On, Cast Off...

So, during my blog drought, Madeline broke her hand. She was batting for her softball team, the Southeast Under-10 Cubs, and she fouled one off her right hand. (Her father is very proud that she FINISHED her at-bat.) We iced it and gave her Advil, but we didn't realize it was broken for a day and a half. Finally Jon took her to Children's for an x-ray, and sure enough-- broken 5th metacarpal. (That's the knuckle of your pinky finger, for you non-medical types. Madeline keeps having to correct me when I say metatarsal, which would be her pinky TOE.)

Yesterday was the day she's waited for four weeks now. She went to "Critter Camp" at the Dumb Friends' League with her cast, she went to Gardening Camp with her cast (and held it out of the water while she "swam" each afternoon), and even went to her first sleep-away camp with her cast (where it was too cold to swim anyway).

Here she is, before:



And after:



She was looking forward to washing that hand; about the fourth day she started to complain that the cast smelled. Once the nurse sawed the cast off (Madeline was only party reassured that the saw vibrated instead of spinning), she left and we went straight to the sink. We washed... and washed... and washed. The amount of dead skin on her hand was a bit shocking, and she was pretty grossed out: