Wednesday, April 18, 2012

The blog post that came back to bite me on the posterior

So you remember the post where I talked about lettings kids do what kids do and not being a helicopter parent? How I said that there likely to be more broken bones in Tyler's future? Um, yeah, should have got a firm grip on a large piece of wood as I wrote that. It went like this....

Tuesday afternoon, about 4:15pm the phone rings and a lady from the OSCAR Holiday Programme was attending said "We think Tyler has broken his wrist". I shot down to the school where they run the programme and one look at the wee dude's face was enough to tell me that he not feeling too good at all. They had rigged up a sling for him, and gently pulled back the edge to show me the kink in his wrist. 

Off we sped to A&E, where they quickly weighed him and gave him a dose of paracetamol. This didn't even touch the sides of the pain so they squirted a morphine-type substance up his nose with the advice that he would probably be a bit woozy. Five minutes later he was talking non-stop, telling me a very involved story about something he saw on tv. All the time he was waving his non-damaged arm in the air because he said the place on his arm where they rubbed numbing gel felt strange. He had two lots of x-rays, which showed the complete break in the ulna, with the bone on an angle, hence the kink in his wrist. Skip this picture if you're a bit squeamish....


Eventually the doctors sedated him and straightened the bone. He was out to it for about 20 minutes and then woke up rather startled. By this time Chris had arrived. The doctors were concerned about swelling inside the temporary cast, so they cut it all the way down on one side so that we could gently widen it if needed to release the pressure. Eventually they released him with a sling and a prescription for pain medication. As we stopped to get some paperwork from the nurse, a baby started squawking in the cubicle next to us. Tyler exclaimed "Someone's just had a baby in there!" which had the nurse giggling. 

After a quick stop at McD's for some food as we were all starving we drove home and tucked Tyler into our bed (thank goodness for Super-King-size bed). It was a bit of a restless night for all of us. Fortunately Chris was home today on his in-between day and I am off tomorrow and Friday so we can give him plenty of love and attention.

Next week he'll get a proper cast - he reckons this one is going to be pale yellow. And so he is maintaining his '1 broken bone for every 2 years of life' average.

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