A two-fer

I feel, that with six children, we have been extremely fortunate in the broken bone department.

When Julia was 3, she decided to hop up the stairs in our Cape Cod style home. When she was about to hit the top stair, she teetered backwards, cartwheeling all the way to the bottom. What did she receive for her hopping? Just a broken collar bone. Like I said, lucky.

Flash forward 8 years. When Henry was 2, he was laying/playing on my parents couch. Somehow he rolled off and fell onto their wood floor, breaking his collar bone. Nothing dramatic, and in fact it broke surprisingly easy. But at least it wasn't his head.

Now flash forward 3 years. Nora is outside playing in the back yard by herself while I chat with my friend. Suddenly we hear her "screaming bloody murder".

She comes in with her left arm limp at her side and she won't be comforted. Being in tune with each of my children and how long is normal for them to cry, I realize immediately that the child needs to go to the doctor.

My only mistake was in choosing the urgent care that I did. But it was close and is never busy.

We got there and the dr. examined her and decided an x-ray would be in order. The x-ray itself was a horrible, horrible crying affair as we tried to gently place her arm in the needed positions.

After we get back, dr. comes back in and says, well, "It doesn't look broken, but there is fluid on her elbow." ok, just so everyone else knows, fluid on bone is nearly always a sign!!!!

So, deciding that it isn't broken, he proceeds to try and pop her elbow back in place. He thinks it could be nursemaid's elbow. After trying three times unsuccessfully while Nora screams, and I bawl my eyes out, he says,"Well, maybe it's broken on the growth plate. I'll send you to Children's Orthopedics."

And so you know, as he was twisting her arm around, my mother's instinct was telling me that he was wrong. Nora's elbow had popped out just weeks before and I had popped it back in super easy. I told him that I had popped two different children's elbows back in a number of times and it was always easy, and he proceeded to tell me that because she was 3, she was at the upper end of the age when this happens and so it's tougher.  Bull honkey!!!! I should have listened to my instincts and told him what he could do with his theories on nursemaid's elbow!

So we take her to Children's Hospital Orthopedics. They take another x-ray. The bone doctor tells us that just from the way she is holding in she can tell it's broken, but the fluid confirms it and oh by the way, look at that crack!!

I don't know what urgent care doc and his radiologist were smoking, or maybe  they just don't see many broken arms?!!!!

Anyhoo, by now she is feeling better, they tell us to wait until her arm swelling goes down, and then we bring her back in for a cast.

We still only kind of know what happened, from what I could decipher, she fell off the top of the play set, the part with the little roof where they sit and play house and stuff.

So fast forward a few short weeks. I'm taking some friends to the airport when Kate calls me with Henry crying in the background.

"Mom, Henry fell off a chair in the backyard and he says his arm hurts."

I tell her to watch him and to call me back if he's still crying in ten minutes. He isn't. So I think, ok, he must have just landed funny.

But when I get home, his arm is hanging in that oh so familiar way. Darn it, shoot, crappity crap crap.

So I call Jeff and we could to a DIFFERENT urgent care. For two reasons, one because I will never let that other doc touch any of my kids again, and two, I'm too paranoid. People get their children taken away!!!

At the other urgent care, they don't touch his arm. They don't try to tell me that they think his elbow popped out. They take an x-ray and bing bing bing bing! We win the booby prize!







Two broken arms. Two casts at the beginning of the summer. Nice.

So then begins our 3 weeks of people asking us about it, or being afraid that we're abusive parents and just looking at us funny.

3 more weeks of no swimming, no biking, so going anywhere with sand or water or fun.

Luckily, Henry's break was not as bad as Nora's. So while she had to be in her cast for 6 weeks, he only had to be in it for 3. And since he broke his 3 weeks after her, they ended up getting their casts off on the same day!





So now, they are cast free. They still hold their arms in the position they've been in. The good doctor said they will probably do that for as long as they were in the casts. But now that we still have a month of summer left, they've already gone swimming and taken a good long bath and we have more plans to do so!

I have to say, I am honestly grateful that they weren't hurt worse. I'm grateful that Nora's 6 foot fall ended in a broken arm only.

I'm grateful that Henry's 2 foot tumble from a chair onto the grass didn't end in him being tickled to death. Seriously, does he just have soft bones?

But there you have it. Oh, and our family deductible has been met- which means that nothing else will happen to anyone else now:)