On this particular day we just came home from school and I let the two boys play at our house for a bit. They played outside, they played inside, upstairs, downstairs. They were all over the place! They were having SO much fun!! We walked down to the bus stop to wait for the big kids to get off the bus, they played at the park for a little bit while we waited. Then we headed home. I sat down to help Hanna with her homework, the two little boys were outside playing. About 5 minutes later I hear Hunter SCREAMING. He is at that age where every little thing sets him into a screaming fit. So when he walked into the house saying that Jase had pushed him off the trampoline I told him that it was probably just an accident and he didn't mean to hurt him. I told him to go lay on the couch and calm down for a little bit. There was something different about his cry. I was a cry of pain. I went outside to see Jase, make sure he was okay and then went to Hunter. He was still sobbing. I asked him where it hurt, he pointed to his elbow (he had been holding his arm since he walked into the house). I could tell that it was starting to swell, and knew he was in a lot of pain. I knew it was broken. Trent was still in class, I had all 4 kids, plus 1 extra, so I texted Trent. Asked him when he got out of class, and that I think Hunter had a broken elbow. Hunter cried for over 30 mins. It took Trent a long time to see my text, but when he did he came home. I had turned on a show to distract Hunter, but he was falling asleep on the couch anyway. Trent got home and looked at his elbow and confirmed my thoughts that it might be broken.
I asked Jase what had happened outside, and between the two boys this is what I got: Jase was on the trampoline, Hunter was on the outside of the net, on the step-stool. Hunter was zipping the net closed, Jase got a little nervous as he thought he was being locked in. Asked Hunter to stop, he didn't, so he did what any kid would do, he pushed him out of the way so he'd stop doing what he was doing. Hunter fell and landed right on his elbow. Jase felt SO BAD for hurting Hunter!! His parents apologized many many times. I felt bad that they all felt bad. :) They are just kids, he wasn't being malicious, he was trying to protect himself from Hunter locking him in. Really not that big of a deal. It's just part of childhood.
Trent made a little sling and just a little after 4 pm headed over to SAMMC ER. I kept waiting to hear what was going on....they waited for what seemed like forever. About 6:30 Trent texted to let me know that it was for sure broken, but that they were waiting on orthopedics to come take a look at it to see if he needed surgery. SURGERY! On my little boy. For a broken elbow. Ah man. I was sitting outside with my amazing neighbors (like we did most every night). I told them what had happened and they were so amazing to tell me that if I needed to go over there that they would take care of the other kids. We had amazing neighbors, we were truly blessed. I waited anxiously to hear back from him, I wouldn't come over unless he really was going to be taken up for surgery. What seemed like hours later he texted and said they were just going to cast it. Phew.
They didn't get home from the ER till 10:30! It was a long long night spent in the ER, and Trent had his first EMED test in the morning, one of the hardest units of the semester. He pulled a 94 on the test. Who needs to study emergency medicine when you can live it. :)
He spent 3 long weeks in the purple cast. On Halloween he had his follow up appointment at the orthopedics clinic. They took of his cast, took another x-ray, and they said it was still broken and it would need to be in a cast for 4 more weeks. Sigh. Hunter was so sad that he had to have a cast back on.
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| cutting the cast off |
Hunter was sitting on the exam table when I turned to look at the x-ray with the doctor, when he decided that he'd jump down from the table and come to me. Well, as he did his little slide/jump off the table thing he fell and landed right on his elbow. Oh man, did that hurt him!! He screamed, it took almost 5 full minutes before he calmed down. And then they needed another x-ray to see if he had damaged it more. Thankfully he had not. He loved watching them cut off his cast and put a new one on, the saw didn't scare him at all. Although, once his cast was off he wouldn't move his arm at all, and when the doctor tried too it really hurt him. (probably because it was still broken) I was kinda suprised we didn't find anything more than a little dirt in his cast. He had managed to pull much of the gauze out the the cast, but it didn't rub on him at all.
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| on with a red cast |
About an hour after he had gotten his cast on we went to Chick-fila for him to play and have lunch. He somewhere found a penny and got it stuck in his cast. I thought for sure we'd have to go back to have a new cast put on. But after much shaking I was able to get it out. Which was good because his second cast was by far the best cast he had. He couldn't pull out the gauze, it wasn't too big around the elbow, they did a really good job putting it on. However, it only lasted for 10 days.
One nice Monday afternoon all the kids in the neighborhood were outside playing. Much like every other day. I was inside getting dinner ready, but kept peeking my head out to see what the kids were doing. 2 yards over Hunter and Hanna were playing with a bunch of other kids. About an hour after they went down there Hunter came up to our yard and said he got his cast soaking wet. Apparently there was a fire ant pile that they tried to drown. When that didn't work they just played in the bucket of water. I texted Trent, who was up at the schoolhouse studying, to see what he thought, if he needed to have the cast replaced. He came home and looked at it and decided that it did need to be replaced. Well, trying to find a number for the orthopedics clinic (or any other clinic other than the appointment line) is a joke. The appointment line was close because it was a training holiday, and I'm pretty sure it was after 4pm. It took close to an hour to find an number and actually TALK to someone. They had techs in the office, but no doctors, so they could replace the cast there in the office, we didn't need to go to the ER like we thought might happen. It was a really quick trip, and about an hour later he come home with an orange cast.
The orange cast only lasted for 15 days. He had picked so much of the gauze away that it was rubbing in between his thumb and pointer finer so much that he had a really big sore there. I stuck an bandaid on it to help it not rub, but knew it would need to be replaced. I searched around again for a phone number to get a hold of the orthopedics clinic to see what they wanted me to do. I knew that his 4 weeks up in the cast would have technically been that Friday, 3 days away, so I was hoping that they would just x-ray it and take his cast off for good then. I explained all that to the sectary when I called, but of course she didn't know anything and had to check. We could come in anytime to have his cast changed, however, because it was right before Thanksgiving she couldn't be sure if there'd be a doctor there to x-ray and take a look at his arm. Whatever, he has to have a new cast. So Trent came home at noon to take him to get a new cast. As luck would have it there was someone around to x-ray his arm and a doctor there to look at it. He came home without a cast. He was so sad that they didn't put a new cast on! He had gotten so used to his cast that he didn't know what to do without it. I think too it really hurt to move his arm, 7 weeks in one position made it really stiff.
3 days later he was outside playing and was running and tripped and fell on the cement downspout. I thought for sure he had broken his elbow again! Thankfully, he didn't. Trent looked at it and it didn't hurt him to move it so we didn't even take him in.
It took almost 3 weeks for him to regain full range of motion in his arm again, but he's good as new now. He had one last check up with orthopedics before we moved (the morning of Trent's graduation!) and they said it healed perfectly.
Here's to hoping that is our LAST broken bone.
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