September 24, 2014
What started out as a fun "Wacky Tacky Wednesday" at school....
....turned into that dreaded phone call from the school reporting that my child was hurt.
My mom and sister were still here visiting, going to leave within the hour. Andrew was asleep and it was less than two hours before the end of the school day.
I got a call from the school and I cringed because I am always on alert in case the school ever calls reporting Hannah having an allergic reaction. But, this call was to let me know that Hudson had fallen on the playground and gotten hurt just minutes before.
Thankfully, I was able to leave Andrew sleeping at home with my mom and my sister and I drove to the school to check out my brave boy.
When I got there, the principal and his teacher had him laying across their laps with ice on his wrists and he was still crying loudly. He looked awful. I could tell right away that this would be an ER visit. All they could tell was that he hurt his wrists pretty badly. I checked him out and saw that he didn't seem to have a head injury, though he did hit his head. His teeth were fine and so was his face. His chest was good too. He was really complaining about his wrists and his arms and didn't want to move them. His teacher took him out to the car and put him in my arms while my sister drove us to the ER.
Thankfully, they took us right back and checked him out. We had two nurses, a doctor, and a tech right there with us from the time we got to an exam room.
He had a head CT,chest x-ray, and x-rays of both arms and wrists.
The CT scan and chest films came back completely normal.
It turns out that he had buckle fractures of each of the bones in both of his wrists!
They gave him temporary casts on his wrists/forearms and we made an appointment to get the official casts the next morning. He screamed through the tests but was fine by the time they set his wrists.
He was more than fine when they gave him a popsicle at the end.
When we asked him what happened he said that he was running from a friend and went to grab the fireman pole on the playground and his hands slipped, causing him to fall (about seven feet down). He put his arms down broke his fall, but his face still hit the ground as well and he got some abrasions from the wood chips on the ground.
We are so very thankful that his wrists broke his fall. It could have been so much worse and he could've gotten a severe head injury or injured his spine or any number of other injuries that could be caused by a little guy falling that far. We praise the Lord for his protection over our boy that day and every day.
We went home from the ER that day with Tylenol with Codeine for pain.
The Tylenol worked great and he said he didn't have any pain that evening. He actually slept great. I was so glad he could rest. He handled everything so well and was so tough and compliant. I was so proud of my sweet boy.
Immobilizing the wrists took all of his pain away and he didn't even need anything for pain by the next day.
We went in and got his casts with the orthopedic doctor the next day. They said that it should only take about three weeks to heal completely and that because the break was a straight line in each wrist it should heal nicely. Good news!
He handled the casts like a champ and actually seemed to enjoy all of the cool stuff he got to experience. He was amazed that the casts went from wet pieces of gauze material to hard casts in minutes. He asked for red casts, but they were out of red so he settled for one blue and one green.
We went home good to go. He REALLY enjoyed all of the attention he got with those casts. And he had a great time having all of his friends sign their names on them. I took him to the school after he got them put on and his whole class just flocked to him with concern and happiness to see him. He felt so special. He has such sweet teachers, school staff and friends. All of his little classmates had made him pictures and cards.
He did really well functioning pretty normally with the casts on. Past the first day or two he didn't need much help with things and could even write pretty well and didn't miss a beat with his schoolwork. We were so proud of him.
The hardest part about Hudson having broken wrists and casts on them was keeping him from pulling, climbing, and treating them as if nothing ever happened. One time I actually caught him throwing a baseball in the air and using his cast as a baseball bat. For that reason, we were in no hurry to get the casts removed!
October 20, 2014
Three-and-a-half weeks later (and one day after I got out of the hospital after childbirth) I was taking him to get his casts removed. It had been a few days past when they should be healed. I was very surprised that he wasn't at all phased by the process of having them sawed off of his arms. He was very brave and trusting. And he was so happy to have them off. He said that his wrists felt weird for a little while afterwards, but then he was completely back to normal. The doctor said that because they were such clean breaks and he is so young, no one should even be able to tell on x-ray that he ever broke them.
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