Now that we've all calmed down a bit...

Most of you who read my blog have already heard this story but here is the whole thing...Thursday morning I woke up around 4:30am because Mallory was crying and ready to eat. This is a pretty normal time for her to eat during the night. After I fed her I heard Max talking in his crib so I went in there and said "max its too early, you need to lay down and go night night". So he laid down and I covered him up with a blanket. This is also a pretty normal occurrence and if we're lucky he goes back to sleep. If we're not lucky he stays up and starts screaming until we get him. Well that morning he was just kind of quiet and I thought he was going to go back to sleep but then he was talking a little bit. Around 5:30 I figured he wasn't going to go back to bed but we were just leaving him in his crib because it was way too early to go downstairs with him. A few minutes later we heard a horrible thump on the floor and him screaming/crying. We both ran in there and find him laying on the floor hysterical. I thought he was probably ok, just scared. Then we noticed he was holding his wrist. We knew something was wrong. Mark took him in our room while he was still crying and I called our pediatricians emergency number and left a message. I got a call back only a few minutes later and the doctor said we should go to the emergency room. He said it could be fine but it could also be something more serious like a dislocated elbow.

We somehow got all 4 of us out the door within about 10 minutes and headed over to GBMC. In the car Max started acting more like himself, he wasn't crying anymore but he wasn't really using his left hand. I started thinking the worst like he was paralyzed and I was doing stupid things like Max squeeze my hand. He could use the hand but he was moving it much less and when he moved it in a certain way he would kind of wince or cry a little. He would try to suck his fingers but then stop because it hurt.

We got to the hospital and got all checked in. They took us to the pediatric unit and a few nurses looked at him and said they couldn't feel any major breaks or anything too obvious but that they can't really tell anything without x-rays. We finally saw a doctor (actually I think it was a PA) who thought it might be his elbow. She didn't think it was his shoulder or his wrist. Of course there was a lot of waiting in between all of this and Max got to go to the play room in the hospital. As time went by he was using his hand more and more so we were kind of hopeful but I think deep down we knew we weren't going to just walk out of there carefree. I was just praying he didn't need a cast and thinking that would totally ruin our summer. He also uses his left hand to eat and those are his fingers that he sucks for comfort. Finally the x-rays were taken and then like an hour later the PA came back in and said "well it is a break but its very minor, its just the very edge of the bone and its called a buckle fracture and its not very serious...its going to heal just fine". The way she said it I thought her next line was going to be "so have a nice day, bye". But she said "it needs to be casted so we'll do the temporary splint right now and then you will need to go to an orthopedic doctor later this week for the permanent cast. I was devasted and holding back tears while we had to hold Max down and she put the splint on. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen. He was just so confused and all he wanted to do when it was over was suck those fingers and he couldn't get to them. How heartbreaking is that? You have to know Max to realize how sad it was. That is just what he does to make himself feel better in any situation and he couldn't do it.

So we left the hospital and Max fell asleep in the car. He stayed asleep when we got home for about an hour and a half. By that time I started feeling better about the whole thing. I just kept telling myself how it could have been so much worse and Max already seemed to be adapting to it. When he woke up he ate lunch (using his right hand) and didn't even seem to mind having the cast. We had to call the orthopedic office and after a few attempts and several calls to our pediatrician, we got an appointment for that afternoon. I also called the place where we are having Max's 2nd birthday party in August (Jump Zone) to see what their cancellation policy was.

We went to get the cast around 4. The doctor was very nice and explained that kids heal very quickly and the cast only needs to be on for a minimum of 2 weeks. 3 weeks is best. We could even get a water proof cast which we did. Getting the cast on was a nightmare. Just imagine 20 minutes of screaming, kicking and thrashing around while the guy was trying to put it on. He was soaking wet with sweat. It was awful but now its over. My mom came to the appointment too and helped out with controlling him while getting the cast on. I wanted him to have a fun colored cast but those have to be sawed off and the doctor said that is very traumatic so its better for a toddler to get the white one that can be rolled on and off. He even said that we don't have to cancel the birthday party because the cast will be off by then. He said he really doesn't have to limit his normal activities with the cast on. The caset is really just to protect his arm from getting injured again while it is healing.

So that was the end of the drama for the day. We got home by dinner time and Max was back to running around outside. He adapted so quickly to having the cast. The only thing he can't do is suck his fingers. He stopped even trying. He can still twirl his hair with his other hand though but its just not the same as his normal pose. Maybe it was time to break that habit anyway. I gave him a bath that night with only a little bit of water in the tub. Even though the cast is supposed to be water proof we're going to try to not get it soaked just yet.

We were also supposed to have a nice relaxing mini-vacation in Salisbury starting on Thursday but of course we couldn't go since that was the day all of this happened. We postponed it until Friday and we are here now. Max is having a good time even though we aren't taking him in the pool.

So this gives rise to a whole bunch of new issues...converting the crib to a toddler bed, making it a "big boy room", the waking up early, the napping. I'll get to all of that later. For now I'm just trying to be happy that he is going to be okay and he doesn't seem to bothered by not having full use of his left arm. It could have been much worse.







Strangely he can totally pull off this look can't he?