Tucker's Cast

Okay...so here's the story of how Tucker's arm is now in a cast. Typically a story like this would sound something like..."He fell out of a tree and broke him arm, so now he's in a cast." Well, this story is a bit more complicated.

Tyler had a Cub Scout den meeting at someone else's house on Monday night. Tucker (a.k.a. Bug Scout) wanted to go too, even though he was extremely tired. So, Jeremy took them both. Of course, I don't object to being left home alone.

Just as they were about to leave the den meeting to come back home, the boys were on a trampoline. I was told they were not being rough, and no one saw exactly what happened. All we know is that he fell - ON the trampoline (not off of it). He was obviously hurt and crying. He was not really moving his arm and was in obvious pain, so I took him to the urgent care clinic down the street from our house. Let me remind you that he is still extremely tired, and most trips to the doctor for him involve a shot, so he was NOT happy about it until I was able to reassure him that he was not getting a shot. Still, he really just wanted to go to bed.

Well, we get to the urgent care and they ask what happened, poke and prod, ask him "does this hurt?" about 100 times, and do an x-ray. Their diagnosis: "I think it's just bruised. He should be better in the morning. We'll wrap this Ace bandage around him to help support it."

So, we go home with the Ace bandage. I'm relieved he's not hurt that badly. He goes to bed and sleeps fine.

Another note...he doesn't take medicine, so no Tylenol or Motrin has been put into his body at all since this happened. He's gonna be a tough boy. Or he'll have to be since he's stubborn! :)

The next morning, Tuesday, I look at his arm and it is swollen. I remove the bandage, thinking it's swollen just because he had it wrapped and he was sleeping on it all night. I think the swelling goes down some, but by the end of the day, it is still very swollen. He still has not used his arm for anything all day.

The next morning, Wednesday, I check him again and the arm is still swollen. After talking with Jeremy, we decide I should take him back to the doctor. I decide to go back to the urgent care place since they do not charge for "follow ups" and they had already done the x-rays there.

So, we go in and there is a different doctor in there this time, so I explain again what happened, as far as I know, and what's been going on since we were there last. He recommends getting more x-rays to see what it looks like now. After that, he comes back in and says "It's 'Nursemaid's elbow.' " This is basically a dislocation in children 1-3 years old. He says that he could try to feel around and get it back in place himself, but if it didn't work, he would send us to the orthopedist. So, he is feeling around, trying to move things in my baby's elbow to "get it back in place." Tucker's face was turning very red, and he was holding his breath and would let a grunt out every once in a while, trying so hard not to cry or scream.

The doctor stopped and said he didn't feel like it went back in and asked Tucker if it still hurt and if he could move it around and do things with it. Tucker said no, that it still hurt. So, they kindly set up an appointment with an orthopedist for us. When I get home, I look and see that this doctor is NOT covered on our insurance, so I proceed to call our pediatrician, explain to the phone nurse what happened and ask her who we should call that is on our insurance. She gave me a number, but I wasn't getting through, so I called her back and she managed to set up an appointment for us. She told me the appt. time, but said to just get there as soon as we could!

So, we go to The Bone & Joint Clinic of Baton Rouge to see Dr. Walker. After filling out a lot more paperwork, we get back to the room and wait a while. This has already been a long day and Tucker and I were both getting tired and I'm getting frustrated. Tucker is still climbing and jumping on and off of things, really trying to stay awake, but making me nervous about hurting himself more...or again.

We had brought the x-rays already taken with us, courtesy of Ascension Urgent Care, so the doctor is able to look at those before he comes in to see us. After introductions and courtesies, he asks me to explain (again) what happened. Again...I tell what I know. He kind of smiles a little smile and nicely says that he thinks there may actually be a small fracture and NOT the Nursemaid's elbow.

At this point, I am getting mad at the other doctors for not catching this, and am still cringing thinking about the doctor trying to put whatever he thought was dislocated back into place in Tucker's elbow and the unnecessary pain he put him in! But, when I asked this doctor, he defends them saying that it is a small fracture and can be difficult to see on an x-ray. When they zoom in to what they are looking for, the actual fracture would go out of the picture, so they wouldn't see it. He said he was not surprised that they missed it. This really doesn't make me feel a whole lot better about the whole situation. But, I am thankful that we were able to get to a doctor who knew what he was talking about and what to look for.

So, we go do MORE x-rays. But this time, we're getting the right view to look at where he thinks the fracture is. We go do the x-ray, wait a little longer, then are taken back to a place that looks like pre-op. I'm still not really sure what's going to happen or what the end result will be. Soon Dr. Walker comes in and smiles his gentle smile again and says, "Well, it is a fracture. And we're going to need some protection." He laughs as Tucker is jumping off of the stool while we are talking and says, "Tucker, you just don't know what you're doing to your mother." :)

I ask him what he means by "protection" and he tells me he needs to be in a cast for 3 weeks! So, I went from Monday night being relieved it was just a bruise and not dislocated or broken, so the dislocation scenario, to the final answer being broken! What a roller coaster of emotions for a mother, although for whatever reason, I haven't really been terribly emotional about it.

Tucker has been quite a trooper through all of this. He thought the x-rays were cool, which is good since we did them 3 times! He got suckers everywhere we went. He didn't cry or scream other than when he got hurt - not even when the doctor was really hurting him trying to put his "dislocated elbow" back into place! And he sat still as they put the cast on him, even though he didn't really know or understand what was going on. And he got to pick the color he wanted his cast to be, which pleased him. Blue is his current favorite color, so that's what he picked.

Perhaps his calm demeanor, that he apparently gets from his Daddy, has helped keep me calm through all of this. He didn't seem like he was in unbearable pain at any point, so I didn't freak out at any point. But I also think that God has given me what I need to be the mother of little boys. I've managed to remain calm through this ordeal, as well as other things like Tyler's tooth being knocked out (another trampoline accident at someone else's house).

I also find it ironic that they only have these accidents when on trampolines at other people's houses. We have had our trampoline for almost 3 years and they haven't been hurt. They've also spent hours on the trampoline at my sister's house with ALL of their cousins and haven't had any accidents or injuries.

So...that's the long version of how Tucker got his cast for his first broken bone! It is not slowing him down at all! He slept fine last night...didn't wake up once. He was back on the trampoline briefly last night. I wouldn't let him on it before when he was not using him arm, but once he got the cast on, we figured it was okay. :) He's ready to ride his bike, do flips on the couch, and whatever else he can do, which is pretty much everything he could do before.

(And a special thanks to my sweet friend, Amie, who is always willing to help out. She picked Tyler up from school and kept him at her house while Tucker was getting his cast put on.)