Broken Arm #2

I had deja vu as Andrew came running into the house holding his elbow and yelping, "Mom, I broke my arm!" The exact same scenario happened 3 years ago when Christian fell down the stairs. Since I have three boys, I am very used to bruises, ouches, scrapes, blood etc, but it is rarely something serious. Andrew, especially, is a bit dramatic when it comes to these things, so I was hesitant to put too much stock into his whimperings. At the same time though, he doesn't usually use the words "I broke my arm," with such sincerity, so I definitely took it seriously.

When he calmed down enough to tell me what happened, he explained that Hyrum was chasing him with a stick, so he climbed up on the railing of the porch and tried to jump off. His foot caught on the edge, and he tumbled to the ground and tried to catch himself. I couldn't see any swelling, he could move it in all directions fine, and he wasn't even really crying much. Jonathon and I decided to give it some time and check on it in a few hours. Andrew calmed down pretty quickly, but was still complaining about it and holding it gingerly. He went to bed that night with it still looking fine, so we didn't think it would be a problem to wait until morning to decide if he needed to be seen by a doctor.

When he woke up the next morning (a Saturday, of course), his arm was swollen, and he was still holding it very carefully. We finally decided to take him into the urgent care and get it checked. Luckily, there was no wait, and within 15 minutes we had x-rays that confirmed that his right humerus bone was broken, just above the elbow. To add to the deja vu, it was the same arm, in the same spot as Christian. Andrew was very brave, and they sent us home with a sling for a few days until the swelling went down.

Andrew got his cast a week later. He chose red, of course. We left the doctor's office with the instructions to be careful, and no bikes or scooters for the next month. Blah! It was Spring Break, so many of our plans had to be changed. Poor Andrew felt a bit left out of several activities, but he handled it well.

We went to get his cast removed last Wednesday. He was super scared to get his cast cut off, but the nurse at the orthopedic office was fabulous. I told her that he was nervous, and she immediately turned on the kindness. She carefully explained everything that she was doing. She showed him the machine she was using that she called "The Tickle Machine", turned on the saw so that he could hear it beforehand, and then showed him that it wouldn't cut his skin by putting it up to her own hand. Andrew's smile returned, and I could tell that he was going to be just fine. I was so grateful for such a wonderful woman to be there to help Andrew through this. The cast came off great, and he brought it home to show off to his friends.

The new x-ray showed that everything is healing well, but we have 3 more weeks of being careful until it is fully healed. Hopefully, we are done with broken bones for a while :)