Our Not-so Humerus Birthday Party

If you recall, Valentine's Day 2007 was punctuated by a not-so-random snow boarding accident that resulted in a trip to the emergency room and a cast on Spencer's right arm for the next six weeks.

I figured I was good for the next 13 years. One broken bone every 13 years, that's not too bad. Ha!

I say it again. Ha!

It was Lillian's birthday and in the middle of the festivities she was standing on the chair that we prop next to the trampoline so the children can get on and off easily (without jumping off and breaking a leg is the reasoning). Well, she was on the chair and it tipped over. She fell and I heard the screaming even from my position at the kitchen sink.

It didn't seem like much of a fall for all the noise she was making but her elbow started to swell. So much for cake and ice cream to say nothing of opening presents. I thought I'd wait until the next morning to see if it was better but come daylight it wasn't any less swollen or painful.

I got into the pediatrician at 10am and 5 1/2 hours later--read that again people, 5 1/2 hours later--she too had her very own cast. The pediatrician sent us to radiology for x-rays, radiology sent us back with the films, they then sent us to an orthopedic surgeon where we waited for an hour. Apparently it was a bad supracondylar fracture of the left humerus.

Evidently young childrens' elbows often hyper-extend so that when they break a fall with their arms out the backwards compression breaks the bone near the elbow. The doctor would have to set her bones. Of course, who would expect an orthopedic surgeon to actually have painkillers on hand for that kind of a thing so we had to wait another hour as we went to the pharmacy, got the prescription filled then waited for the drugs to take effect.

By then it was 2pm. We finally got in for the actual casting and it was nasty. Nothing like seeing your child on the table looking up at you as the doctor pushes her bones back into place, tears streaming down her cheeks from the pain, to make you feel horrible. Just horrible. I would have taken the pain for her fifty times over if I could have.

Then more x-rays. And more x-rays. And even more. Six more sets to be exact bringing our total to 10. At $200 a pop you do the math--and we've had more since then as well and can expect to have another set each week as he wants to see her every seven days until it's healed. I'm starting to think that maybe Andrew should have gone into medicine.

But the good news is they've pretty much ruled out surgery and they haven't carted me away for being the World's Worst Mother. And to tell you the truth I was a little nervous about someone finding out Spencer had broken his arm recently--like they'd start to "look into" things or something. Luckily we had a different set of doctors and I was pretty vocal about mentioning the vast number of witnesses at the party that saw the accident happen. Nothing to see here folks, go about your business.

I'm starting to get pretty good with helping crippled children out--bathing children with plastic bubble-wrapped limbs and such--I'm hoping that I've used up my allotment of broken bones for the next couple decades.

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