My oldest son was at school a couple of weeks ago at recess, when he jumped up to catch a ball and then "landed funny" on his foot.  It only hurt when he put pressure on it.  I took him to the emergency room, where they said he had simply sprained it, and that it would heal on its own.  Two days later, I received a call from the radiology department at the hospital.  Turns out, there is a fracture after all, and we were referred to the local pediatric orthopaedic specialist. 

I took all three kids to the appointment.   We were ushered into the tiny room, where we waited for what seemed to be an eternity.  The doctor looked at the x-rays and said that the fracture was called a "cuboid" fracture because it was a square bone.  He said my son needed a cast. 

I opted for the waterproof cast, because it was only $45, and I thought it would be nice to be able to get it wet.  This was at 3:30 pm.  At 5:30 pm, I dropped him off at his father's for the weekend.

When I got him back on Sunday, his cast had a huge hole in the bottom of it, and his foot was nearly black from where his father had let him walk around outside in the dirt while they built a fire in the firepit.  I saw red.

Luckily, the doctor's office replaced the cast for free and simply charged me $30 for a new shoe, as the one the emergency department had given us was not good enough. 

A week went by with no incident.  He was supposed to keep the shoe on and not put weight on the foot.  How hard can this be, right?

Saturday came, and he had a play date with a friend he had not seen in awhile.  This friend also had a pool.  When I picked him up, his cast was wet, but it was waterproof, so I didn't worry too much about it.  I took him to play with his cousins, and when I picked him up a couple of hours later, the top of the cast had broken off, and the hole had returned to the bottom, where they had patched it.

When I called the doctor's office, they were not very understanding this time.  They charged me $135 to replace it, and they chose to give him a regular cast, rather than waterproof.  With the new cast, the itching is astronomical, but we have been instructed not to put anything into the cast to scratch with, only to give him Benadryl.  Benadryl knocks him out.

TWO MORE WEEKS.  If I can just get through the next two weeks with this new cast........