I Wish It Had Been an April Fool's Joke

Friday morning began like any other morning. Will and I got up, settled down upstairs and had our breakfast while watching one of his favorite shows, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Next, he climbed up in my lap and cuddled for a bit, then it was time to start our day. We had big plans to meet some dear friends at Monkey Joes for some fun playtime. Well, that was not to happen.

While I was finishing my cup of coffee, Will began to play with Neely. He has a toy, one of the large tops with a handle that you push down to make it spin, and she is terrified of it. He loves to chase her around with it because she acts so crazy. As they were playing, he was running around the upstairs carrying the top. He went to turn and fell down and his leg landed on the top. He immediately rolled over and began to cry. I saw it happen and assumed it was a fall like any other and told him to shake it off. However, I quickly knew something wasn't right because his cry was not the usual cry...it was more of an "I am in PAIN" grunting cry.

I went over to check on him and noticed his little thigh had swollen immediately. I tried to stand him up and that wasn't happening. Thank goodness Daniel was working from home that day. I called him up to take a look. He always tries to look on the bright side and said, "It is probably just a bad muscle bruise." He sat upstairs holding Will for awhile to get him calmed down. Will did ok calming down, but every few minutes, the poor thing would just shake and cry out. We would later learn that was his muscles contracting to try and accomodate the broken bone.

We decided to take him to the ER at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital just to be on the safe side. Thank goodness we did! When we got there they immediately took us back. The first thing they did was put in an IV to get him some meds for pain. The little guy was brave...mommy, not so much. I had to leave the room. Once they got the morphine in him, he was able to relax and deal with the pain.

Being a brave little boy.

We waited for a while for them to have a space in xray for him. One of the doctors came in to talk with us. He told us that if it is broken there would be two possibilities due to his age. He would either be in a spica cast or they would do surgery and use flexible pins to help set the bone. Either option sounded awful to me. We just prayed it wasn't broken.

I was not allowed to go because I was pregnant, so Daniel accompanied him back to the xray room. They were gone about a half an hour, but when they returned, Daniel already knew the diagnosis. He told me it was broken and the tech had said, "It's a doozy." My heart dropped and the tears started. About that time my mother-in-law showed up, thank goodness. She stayed with us while we waited for the next step. They told us it would be a spica cast. It was a tortion fracture and very common. In fact, they said it is not rare to see 3 or 4 a week during the summer. They showed us the xray and I couldn't believe my eyes. It was broken diagonally all the way through. I cannot imagine the pain my sweet boy must have been dealing with.




The xray image they showed us


They had to put him under to set his leg and cast him. Daniel and I went back to pre op with him and stayed until they rolled him back. Then we just had to wait. The pediatric orthopedist came out and talked with us. Will had done wonderfully and they were pleased with how things looked. We went back to see him and by that time my parents had showed up. We were able to go home that day. Thankfully, we had 2 sets of grandparents who were willing to help all weekend.

The first night home was great. He got some rest and was relatively pain free due to the meds. Daniel and I, however, were completely overwhelmed.

I plan to post **hopefully** daily, even if it is just a word or two about our day. I want him to be able to look back later and read about this ordeal. This is just one of those things life throws at you sometimes, and it could ALWAYS be worse. I passed several children fighting cancer and other very serious things which helped me to be thankful that this injury will heal relatively quick and our life will go back to normal. There are parents and kids out there who don't have the same certainty. I will remind myself of that often during the next 6 weeks.