Broken Arm

Well...it has been a rough week for especially Micah. Last Sunday night as we were getting ready to go to bed, Micah decided to try and stand and balance on the armrest of the rocking recliner. We were right there, but in an instant he fell backwards and hit the wall. Initially I thought he just bumped his head and it wasn't that bad. However, immediately he grabbed his arm (just above the wrist) and I had to barely glance at it to realize his arm was broken. As you can see from the X-ray below, the broken bone cause a big lump in his arm in the wrong place. Sadly, it was Eric's birthday, and we immediately knew it was going to probably an all-nighter. And it was.

We started out at Mount Pleasant hospital because they are only about 5 minutes away. We got right in and they x-rayed his arm in record time. But once they realized it was not a greenstick (meaning a bone that bent but didn't completely break), they told us Micah would have to be sedated for them to set the bone and cast it. That would mean going to MUSC Children's Hospital to get it done.

So off so MUSC we went. They also got us in very quickly, and Micah did quite well. They did give him Morphine for the pain before we left the other hospital. After the diagnosis was confirmed (broken radius, hairline fracture in the ulna, and displaced wrist), they made a plan. He was not allowed to be sedated for 6 hours since the last time he ate. This meant nothing could be done until 2am. Since we knew we would be waiting for a few hours before anything could happen, Eric decided to go upstairs (where he works) and get some work done so he could come in later the next day. I stayed with Micah and we watched "Frozen". He wanted me to lay on the bed with him and rub his feet. He was been really sweet most of the time. Even though they gave him pain medication to help him rest, he stayed awake the entire time. 

At 2am, they started the sedation, within seconds of them putting the ketamine in his IV, he was out. It was kind of creepy to watch. Then they asked Eric and I to leave while they reset the bone and put the cast on. We stood out in the hall for what seemed like an eternity. We even heard him cry a few times. It was hard.

After we were able to go back in, this is how we found him. (below). They told us that he could be waking up from the sedation soon and then they would have to monitor him for a little while before we could take him home. About 1 and 1/2 hours later, we were finally able to wake him up enough that they let us go home. Since it was the middle of the night and he had just experienced all that trauma, he was very tired and just wanted to sleep. We arrived home around 4:30am. 

That night and the next few days were rough. The poor little guy was not happy about his new predicament. He didn't sleep well and he was quite unhappy about his arm being unusable. In addition, he was still having pain. It didn't make for easy days for me either. He is doing much better now though. He will get his permanent cast on tomorrow and I'm hoping that is waterproof. One week down, only 5 more to go!! We WILL figure out a way to still go to the beach. :)

2 days later he was feeling a little better

Even being silly