First Broken Bone

Grant experienced his first broken bone before he was two years old! I am not surprised at all considering he is a rough and tumble, crazy little boy. The story of HOW he broke it is way more simple than the actual process of discovering that it was really broken. Cameron had to work on Memorial day, but we had been invited to a friend's house for a BBQ, so Grant and I decided to still go. It was tons of fun and lots of good food. the kids were all in their swimming suits playing in the sprinkler and on a slip n' slide throughout the evening. At one point I looked across the yard just in time to see Grant climbing to the top of the slide. The only problem with this was that he was still wet and it was a plastic slide so when he got to the top and tried to stand up to reposition and sit down again, he slipped and fell straight backwards(about 5 feet) onto the ground. I saw the whole thing happen, and walked over to see if he was ok, but he wasn't even really crying, just kind of complaining and whimpering for a minute. I held him for like 2 minutes and then he wanted to get back to playing with the kids, so I assumed he was fine. 

That evening however, he was up ALL night long and I could not figure out what was wrong. he seemed really tired, but like he just couldn't sleep. I suspected then that maybe he had hurt himself when he fell. The next morning I watched him carefully and noticed that he was DEFINITELY favoring his left arm. He wouldn't use it at all and cried when I had to move it to put a shirt on. After watching him all morning, I decided to take him to our doctor that afternoon. She said she was pretty sure it was just nursemaid's elbow(basically popped out of socket). They twisted it for a while and decided we should take him to the pediatric ER to get X rays to just double check that it wasn't broken. We headed over to the ER that evening just before Cameron had to go to work. He ended up having to call and say he would be a little late for his shift. I was really glad I didn't go by myself because I forgot that since I was pregnant, I wouldn't be able to go into the X ray room with him. After seeing two different dr's who were "sure" that it was just popped out and not broken, they did the x ray to confirm. Wellllllll, we got the x ray back and they said there was NO break. They then proceeded to twist and pull on his poor little arm like crazy. Grant was a trooper and didn't really cry again. They said that they were sure they heard it pop back into place and that he should be feeling 100% by the next morning. They were super nice the whole time and we really weren't there very long considering it is an ER. Because it is specifically a pediatric ER, they are quick and get you right back. Their test to see how Grant's arm was feeling was to hold his right arm back and offer him a popsicle. He hesitantly grabbed it two different times, so they assumed he was fine(plus the X ray that supposedly showed no break). So Cameron raced off to work and Grant and I grabbed some Chic fil' A and headed home to go to bed. He still seemed hesitant to use his left arm, but I figured by the next day he would be fine. 

The next day he was NOT fine. He was still totally favoring his left arm and it just didn't seem right. That evening I headed over to our friend's house, who is an ER dr. He watched Grant play with his kids and tried a couple different tests to see how he was using it, and without any hesitation, he said something is still wrong and that we needed to take him to an orthopedic dr to have it looked at again. So that night I made an appt with an orthopedic dr(I picked one who looked young and nice, thinking maybe he had kids of his own). We took him in the next day and the dr was super nice and was really good with Grant. Turns out he has a little boy the same age. They didn't even need to take new x-rays, they could SEE A BREAK on the ones the ER had taken! ugh, I was SO annoyed that Grant had been in pain for two extra days than was necessary. They put a cast on it, and IMMEDIATELY you could see the relief on Grant's face. The Dr. said it wasn't too bad of a break so he actually only should need the cast on for two weeks. That was good because we were leaving to head to Utah/Spokane in about 4 weeks. 

We made the followup appt for two weeks later and they took new xrays to make sure it had healed. They even showed us the before and after xrays and you could clearly see where the break was and where the new bone had grown back. Again, everyone there was super nice and although I was nervous that it would still be bothering Grant after they took the cast off, he seemed totally 100% as soon as it came off! 

Here he is at the ER getting his arm checked out for the FIRST time...

You can't see it in his face, but he knew he was pretty funny putting the sticky on his eye like this. 

Eating popsicle number 2. 

Getting his cast on. He doesn't look happy, but he was fine, he was just really interested in what they were doing to his arm

Just after getting his cast on. Cameron took him to go get ice cream to "celebrate"

Here are a couple pictures to show how Grant didn't even notice the cast was there. He did everything just fine with it on and it really never bothered him at all. 

It was SO nice too that they made the cast waterproof for us. We had heard from a few people that it might cost more or that we might have to convince them to do it, but we never even asked, the orthopedic dr just told us it would be waterproof, which was such a life saver since it was hot summertime and he needed lots of baths after playing outside, not to mention not having to miss out on going to the pool!

Getting the cast taken off...

I was so nervous that this guy was going to saw into Grant's arm!