A Broken Arm

 

At the beginning of June, Eric was walking down the stairs to our kitchen when his toe caught on the edge of a step and he fell.  He was close enough to the bottom that he went straight down on his hands on our tile floor.  When I picked him up, I noticed his arm looked a little funny. 

Now I'm no medical expert, but I was pretty sure arms aren't supposed to bend like that.  So I called Brian and asked if he thought his mom could watch Luke for a couple hours, called my mother in law who hurried over to pick up Luke, and off Eric and I went to the hospital.  

He was such a trooper in the emergency room.  The nurses didn't think his arm was broken because he was so sweet and cheerful the entire time.  But one look by the doctor on call confirmed what I thought.  Definitely broken.   Now came the tough parts, an x-ray to look at the break (those big machines sure are scary for little ones) and an IV to knock him out while the doctor set the arm.  The IV was really hard on Eric and I began to wonder if we should have just let him stay awake to have it set but because of the type of break it was a good thing he was out.  He only broke one of the two lower arm bones and in order to keep the arm straight the surgeon had to break the other bone in his arm.  Because Eric was asleep, he was able to push hard enough to break it there so we didn't have to bring Eric back for a surgery.

 

On July 7, we got to take the cast off.  Eric was a trooper again. 

 The saw was a little scary.  Good thing daddy was there to help him feel brave.

  

 

 

 

And finally a cast free arm.  Eric was great with the whole experience.  He didn't ever complain about the cast bothering him and was brave every time we went to the doctors.   And now he can say he's tougher than his mom.