Boots fiasco

It's official, I hate Will's leg braces more than I thought possible. I suppose that things could be a lot worse (and actually they really really could be a ton worse) but let me point out that when something like a leg brace breaks, it makes walking rather difficult.

Will can walk without the support of his leg braces, or boots as we call them, but he is significantly less stable/sturdy and the opportunity for injury shoots way up. Not only that, but we don't have any shoes that fit a non-booted foot. Well, except slippers...

My "old man" in his slippers helping fold laundry. 

Per the usual, Will goes like a weed so about every six months he is due for a new pair. The new "Superman" themed boots arrived in November. When we were at the place doing the final fitting a piece popped off and the guy said, "huh, I've never seen that happen before. I'll go glue it back on." Right then and there a little piece of me knew that this wasn't going to end well.

Fast forward a few months of hard use and that piece, as well as some additional pieces, broke off again and again and again... No, not once, not twice but THREE TIMES.

Entertainment while we wait. 

During the second emergency "fix it" trip I had finally had it and they agreed to make a new boot. Well, that involves yet another appointment. So, three repairs, one new casting and one final fitting appointment we have one new leg brace. For those of you who are slow to add, that's five trips in a 18 day time period.

We absolutely love Hope Orthotics and they did a great job helping expedite the new boot, did them at no cost to us and always worked us in to get the current boot fixed, so kudos to them. They think what happened was on Will's right boot the plastic just didn't get hot enough to meld all the other plastic pieces together. Statistically bound to happen when you have had six pairs of leg braces.

Quinn participated in one of these trips - the one where we hauled you know what to the med center in 4 p.m. traffic to get there before they closed at 5 p.m. 

That one was my absolute fave... insert sarcastic laugh.

I think what frustrated me the most was that this happened to Will in the middle of the day at school; he basically had to sit and wait for me to come get him and couldn't really participate in any big movements without holding a teachers hand.

When I got there the last time it was a beautiful sunny morning and the class was outside doing something called "Adventure Blocks" which sounds to be one his favorite things. He was sitting next to his teacher and just had this sad little face; broke my heart right there. Granted, I found out later he was participating previously with the help of his teacher but had just sat down to take a break. It made me feel a little better but not really.

Through all of this, Will did an amazing job of letting someone know when it just didn't feel right. In other words, he advocated for himself. He asked for and immediately got help. He earned a coin in his bank at school for being so brave as well. So proud.

See that little black rubber looking piece in the middle? That rubber piece kept falling off as well as small piece of the inside of the boot. The "work shop guys" as Will calls them now used the rivets and super glue to adhere it all back together.

Today we picked up his new boot - Ninja Turtle. So one left leg is his old Superman boot and right leg is Ninja Turtle. Let's hope the Turtle was melted properly. If not, his boot won't be the only thing breaking :-)

Notice there are no rivets on this boot.

Not to worry, we'll be back getting fitted for an entirely new pair in probably two or three months. I launched a pretty aggressive campaign to get an entirely new set but lost that battle. Oh well. I got to spend a lot of extra time with Will and we made the most of it. One day he got to be my little temporary employee and aggressively tried to get my attention  waited patiently while I had an hour long phone conference for work.