Broken boy...

Since Lucas broke his arm and was sentenced to a splint for four weeks, I've been checking it daily. We know Lucas. Lucas runs. Lucas spins. Lucas leaps. Do we see a pattern? Thus my daily checking of the status of his brokenness.

My lunchtime arm check on Wednesday was not the usual quick look and put the splint back on. When I took the splint off, his whole forearm was swollen, a good portion of his wrist was green and bruised looking, and you could tell something had been or was bleeding under the surface because of a big, bright red spot. Ugh!

I quickly called Justin and he agreed we should call the orthopedic doc we saw after the ER and see what he thought. His staff told me he wasn't available until Friday and if we thought it was an emergency we should go to the ER or call our pediatrician. I opted for the pediatrician.

I then called my mom. I'm the only one in my office this week, so I knew I couldn't take the afternoon off. My mom graciously agreed to come get Lucas and take him to see the doctor. I don't think she even imagined the ride she was in for...

Dr. Gerlach (our pediatrician - located in Slippery Rock - awesome guy) asked her what idiot had decided to splint a 4-year old. She just simply agreed with him and said this was her daughter's first experience with a child with a broken bone so I was just following the orthopedic doc's instruction about a splint being sufficient. He looked over Lucas's arm and agreed that it definitely didn't look good and needed addressed asap. He then made a phone call and sent my mom back to Grove City with instructions (bad ones at that) to see Dr. Dean, get an xray, and do not leave without a cast.

So, she headed back to Grove City and eventually found Dr. Dean's office. He too was dumbfounded by a 4-year-old with a broken bone (a complete break at that) in a splint. He definitely isn't surrounded by child patients all day, as he asked my mother, "Who the _____ did this and why didn't I see this boy before this?" She didn't want to necessarily bash the other orthopedic doctor, so she just said that we had seen who the ER had sent us to see.

A very worried Dr. Dean took an xray of Lucas's arm, apparently thinking he was going to see a big mess of displaced bone. Keep in mind that when it was originally broken it was a clean break, all the way through the bone, but was not displaced at all. After the xray was processed, he came back into the room and told my mom that a bullet had been dodged. He said that a clean break like Lucas's would only take one good jar to send one end of the bone to the side or up and over the other end of the break and right through the skin. Thankfully, the two ends of the break were still in place. He couldn't say why the bleeding had occurred, but he was relieved to see everything was still in place.

Dr. Dean is now my hero. I've never heard of waterproof casts, but Lucas is now the proud wearer of one. A blessing since our day at Waldameer was just two days after the cast was put on. Lucas picked a blue color and was given two rules:

1. Do not stick anything inside the cast.

2. Do not whack anything or anybody with the cast.

Thank you, thank you to my mother. I don't know what I would have done had she not been available and willing to do the doctor run on Wednesday.

The bone was healing well, so we'll have it checked, by Dr. Dean of course (cancelled the follow up with the other guy) in one week. We'll see how it looks then. For now, this saga's end is TBD.