First Broken Bones

Eleven years. We made it 11 years with no broken bones.

That streak was broken last Monday afternoon (Sept. 25th) about 4pm when Elijah fell off his bike a block away from home. He stood up, looked down at his left hand which was hanging weird, and thought "That doesn't look good". Then walked home on his own.

"Mom! I broke my arm!" For a second I thought he must be joking because just earlier that day we had studied bones and broken bones in science. But there was no denying it was broken.

He got dizzy and I laid him on the floor. He kept saying he was tired and just wanted to go to sleep. But he was really calm considering and didn't even cry. I sent Ethan down to see if our landlord/neighbors were home. They were and he came up right away and drove us to the ER which is literally just down the street. 

By the way, I do have his permission to share all these photos.

In the ER before he got pain meds and xrays,

He broke his ulna, radius, and two bones in his wrist. It was going to require surgery with pin inserted which they said they would do first thing in the morning. Maybe it was because he had eaten recently I don't know, but I felt bad for him that he was going to have to wait the whole night!

Still in the ER

After six hours in the ER they took him upstairs to a room for the night. He feel asleep soon after we got to the room and slept the whole night except for the constant questioning from the nurses. At one point he woke up and asked "Mom, did you get any sleep yet?"  I thought it was sweet of him to think of me. There was a couch in his room so I was able to stay with him all night and at least try to sleep.

He was so brave. No major tears even though he was in so much pain. It was an open fracture so the bone was poking out through the skin and there was blood.

Meanwhile Ethan had gone to a friends house and spent the night and next day with them. Thanks Post family for taking care of our boy!

Watching cartoons before they came to take him down to surgery.

Geoff and our friend Sue arrived the next morning just as Elijah was being taken back for surgery at 7:30. Then we all got a cup of coffee before Sue had to go to work. Then Geoff and I went back up to the room to wait.

The fog had finally cleared off and we could see the fall colors and mountains.

Surgery went well and he was back by 11:00.  He felt much better once that cast was on.

Just after he got back from surgery.

He enjoyed the popsicles, hospital food and watching movies. He probably would have stayed longer if it was up to him. :)

We were able to go home that evening. You can see he's clowning around in the photo above just before we left the hospital.

He lay low for a few days but by Saturday he was running around making me nervous with the way he was climbing and jumping on things. 

We had a good chuckle over the fact that they returned his undies after the surgery in a biohazard bag.