Broken Arm

September 15-
We made it a whole 3 days into preschool before getting the dreaded call "Kingston hurt his arm and he needs to go to the doctor"!  Jonathan was able to leave work and get Kingston while I got Julienna and met them at the Urgent Care.  I walked in right when they were giving him some medicine.  They took some x-rays and then splinted his arm to hold it steady until we would see the pediatric orthopedic doctor the next week. He needed to wait a week until the swelling stopped.  Kingston never cried except when he would re-tell me or Jonathan the story, but he never complained of being in pain...he was so brave.

 

 

 

 

 

Both the ulna and radius were broken by his wrist.  Most likely from falling onto his outstretched hand when trying to catch himself after falling off the slide.  Luckily it wasn't high off the ground, but it somehow buckled under his weight.
 
 Dr's orders...lay around and watch lots of TV.  This was our conversation:
Kingston: "Mom, I need to watch lots of TV because the doctor said"
Me: "okay"
Kingston: "But mom, even if you say "Kingston that is enough TV for now (and he says it in my mock voice). I will say, no, mom, do you remember how the doctor said that I just need to lay down and relax and watch lots of tv? So that's how it will go so don't even worry about it.
*And we are so lucky to have such great support.  Jane watched him the next day, splint and all.  Lucy and Greta were so sweet and they made slings out of scarves so that Kinston wouldn't feel left out.  And Addy and Emme came over with a bag of goodies to occupy him while he was down.  Kingston even got to spend time with Josie and Nora on one of his "down days".

 

***1 Week Later***
We met with the orthopedic doctor and we didn't get quite the news we were hoping for.  When they x-rayed his wrist, the bones had shifted out of place.  If they are less than 25 degrees off, they will just straighten themselves out and heal just fine, but anything more than that will require surgery to correct.  Kingston's were sitting at 45 degrees. 

We had one option that we could try before the surgery and that was for the doctor to manually reduce the break into an appropriate alignment.  Even though it meant pain for Kingston, it was overall our best option. So, they wrapped up his arm in a blue and orange case per Kingston's request.

 

 

 And then, before the cast was set the doctor pushed on his little arm to try and straighten it.  It is so hard to sit and watch your child be in pain and not be able to do anything more than hug him. But he was so brave and only shed a few tears.  One more x-ray and he was sitting right at 25 degrees. 

So, all is well as long as he is able to maintain that position.  If it shifts at all, it means surgery, but we have our fingers crossed!
 

 He is adapting quite well to not being able to use his arm and it hasn't slowed him down at all...in fact I struggle to keep him down at times so that his body can rest and heal.  He did want to go to Grandpa's house and get some tips on how to do stuff...pretty cute kid!