After Jake received his soft cast, the ER told us to follow up with our regular pediatrician in one week. Friday morning I called our pediatrician office, explained everything that happened and they gave me an appointment for the following Wednesday.
Friday
We spent quite a bit of our day cuddling. Jake spent lots of quality time with his special blankie. I gave Jake regular doses of tylenol, mostly because if I broke something I’d want a continuous morphine drip.
Saturday
We decided to trust McKayla’s babysitting skills and left the kids with her to go wine tasting. No one died and no one required an ER visit. It was a success. In the evening we went to a baseball game and camping. Jacob didn’t complain of any pain, so I denied his requests for tylenol.
Sunday
We went to church where he thoroughly enjoyed being in the limelight. Someone knocked him down on the playground. It was a tragedy. Cake made it feel better.
Monday
I found him on top of the table, leaning over the deck, jumping off the couch, perched on the top of a rocking chair, hanging off a book shelf.
Tuesday
The mayhem continued. It’s kind of like he realized that fracturing a bone wasn’t that big of deal and decided to become much more daring.
Wednesday
9 AM We went to the doctors and explained what happened. She asked him where it hurt and he kept telling her his wrist hurt. Up until this point he hadn’t once complained of wrist pain. What he had complained of though was the cast and wanting it off. I’m pretty sure he was using the wrist as a decoy. She examined him, told me she thought it wasn’t much more than possible a deep bruise but sent us over to the hospital for a wrist, arm, and elbow x-ray.
9:30 AM We walked over to the hospital and then spent the next 40 minutes looking for radiology. This hospital is color coded. Radiology is in coral. We followed the coral signs until they abruptly ended. We found a sideways pointing coral arrow which lead us to a dead end. We turned around and started again. We spotted another coral sign. We found a desk checking people in. We waited in line. We were in the wrong place. She sent us on our way with the most complicated directions ever! “Turn left at the end of the hallway, right at the espresso cart, left at the escalator, left at the baby grand piano, right into the double doors with the fish tank on the left.” We finally found our way in. We checked in and waited our turn.
Yes, they are reading, while we wait!!
Once we made it back to the xray room, Jake assured him that he didn’t have a broken arm. After the a few x-rays, the machine broke. Thankfully they had another room. We got the whole radiology tour.
Did you know you kind of look like Chuck Bartowski?
Did you know they no longer put kids in little lead aprons? Now they just get their junk protected. I guess they are more worried about radiation to his little mr. happy than to say his heart…
11:30 AM After the x-rays we headed back to the doctors. And waited some more. After talking to the radiologist she said that the x-rays looked good and she put him in a small wrist splint and sent us home.
4:30 PM I received a 5 minute voice mail from my doctor saying that after more careful consideration from the radiologist, they believe that he has fractured his radial head and she already called and spoke with the pediatric orthopedist from children’s hospital and I should be expecting a call from them. I immediately called her back with a frantic voice mail.
She called me right back. Somewhere around 2 minutes in, I realized that I was the wrong parent for this phone call. When the twins were in the NICU, Dave completely took care of all of their (and my) medical care. He knew exactly why the doctors were doing what they were doing. He knew schedules and nurses. He knew what all of the wires and tubes were for. He knew how to read the monitors. He asked all of the right questions. I was in charge of holding a baby and lactating. I was definitely out of my realm with this conversation. After talking to her in a haze of stupidity, because all I really heard was anesthesia and surgery, I called the pediatric orthopedist and scheduled an appointment for Thursday.
5:00 PM
Me: So Jacob fractured a radial something and if they would have saw it on Thursday they probably would have put him under and pushed the bones back together and maybe even done surgery but now his bones are sticky because it’s been so long and tomorrow we’re going to children’s to get a full cast or maybe surgery! (This was all said as one long sentence, without taking a breath)
Dave: Um, what?
Me: I should have just told the pediatrician to call you.
Dave: I could call her now?
Me: Okay. And can you come with me tomorrow?
THURSDAY
Our first trip to a children’s hospital! Heck yes! More xrays.
Yep, I’m a pro. And I’m sporting a cool lead apron protecting my junk.
Any minute this kid might turn into a super hero with all this radiation. But we won’t. We got to stand behind an x-ray protected piece of plastic.
Note to self: Buy one of these and cover the house in them.
Dr: Yep it’s fractured. We’ll know more at the three weeks mark (in a lot more words). We’re going to cast him and because he wore the splint for a week, he only needs to wear the cast for two weeks.
Me: Awesome! Credit for time served.
The caster came in.
He was hilarious!
“What color do you want. I have purple, I have pink, I have green, I have white. Please don’t pick white. It will only be white while you are in this room. You are a boy.
You are very lucky. I have magic cast making materials. In the 70s you would have to actually stick your cast in a curing oven for 40 minutes. Yes, you would have to hold still for 40 minutes. I don’t know how they got kids to sit still in an oven for so long! Now it dries while we talk.
Don’t put anything in the cast. You can only stick things larger than your head.
It will itch. don’t scratch it. Remember nothing smaller than your head. No chopsticks, no coat hangers, no knitting needles. No pens or pencils.
Don’t put any money smaller than a $20 bill in there.
It’s gonna smell. Don’t put anything in it to make it smell better like perfume, febreeze, axe body spray, baby powder. Tell your sister that too. Don’t put anything in it to make it smell better. You will still smell. You’re a boy.
DO NOT GET THIS WET! No baths, no showers. If you must bathe, have mom and dad help you. Maybe a sponge bath. One inch of water at the most. Don’t worry, you are a boy.
Don’t use this as a weapon. Parents this can break noses and gives some pretty nasty cast rash.
Tell me, what chores do you do?
Jake: um…
No really, tell me, I am doing research.
Jake: I make my bed.
Good, you can still do that with this cast.
Jake: clear the table.
Good, you can do that too.
Jake: Feed the chickens.
Good, you can still do that too.”
and after he assured Jacob he was still capable to do all of his chores we were done. We made an appointment for two weeks out and went home to have his siblings sign his bright green cast.
Overactiveovaries 