Friday, February 27, 2009

A Night At The ER

Sounds romantic doesn’t it? Much like A Night At The Movies, A Night at The Opera, A Night Sitting On The Couch Like A Vegetable….

When I picked Alex up after work last night, he comes bounding down the stairs, prances across the lawn and throws his backpack into the car. When he flops himself into the front seat he says:

Him: I think I broke my hand today.

Me: Really? Why?

Him: I slugged a guy. We were kidding around so I slugged him.

Me: And broke your hand? Let’s see it.

He holds it up and it does look a little swollen. I think that he must have just sprained it.

Me: Can you wiggle your fingers? (I ask this because I know all those medical things and am pretty sure that if anything is broken you can’t wiggle it.)

He holds up his hand and wiggles all his fingers. He then pulls on his little finger.

Him: I can’t pull this finger down very far.

Me: (BIG SIGH) Ok, we’ll go to After Hours when we’re done with dinner.

No sense rushing into these things and he does look just fine.

We go home, fix dinner and then eat dinner. Hubby says that we should go to the After Hours clinic while he cleans up dinner. It is now 7 PM. Above slugging happened at 8:05 AM, almost 12 hours.

We both knew this was going to be a long night. We only had to wait an hour and then were seen by the doctor.

Dr: Looks like you broke you hand.

Me: (Snort)

Dr: Are you in pain? Have you taken any medication for pain?

Me: (In my head, so the Dr doesn’t hear me. Why didn’t I ask that? I am out of the running for Mother of the Year now!)

We get an x-ray done and lo and behold, there is the break at the fifth metacarpal near his growth plate. He got a temporary cast and will need to see an Orthopedic Surgeon and possibly have some surgery since the break is so close to the growth plate.

This child is an angel. And after my first two, I deserve an angelic child.

14 comments:

Pancake said...

Poor guy! He must have a pretty good tolerance of pain! Hope he heals fast! Did he get the day off of school?

Marrdy said...

He didn't get the day off. I didn't even find out until 5:30 after work. Funny Kid!

nikkicrumpet said...

Must be one tough kid to handle the pain! I hope you can get by without having to have the surgery. Hopefully it will heal up ok. What a looooong day for you!

Tulsi said...

So sad. Don't you love the calm demeanor. It stated like he ate cornflakes for lunch. My son did that with is wrist a few years ago. He came home after snowboarding and said he broke his wrist. Just like he would have told me the oven timer just went off. We put it off 2 days and then.........we find out he broke his wrist. He has such a high pain tolerance that we never know anything. I'm pretty sure the ER doc put us on the "stupid parent" watch list.

Tara said...

Oh man, that is classic. I wouldn't have thought it was really broken either! He's a pretty tough kid if he just went through the whole school day with a broken hand- ouch!

Aunt Julie said...

Hope everything heals up OK. You never did explain the "We were kidding around so I slugged him" part. I guess it's a "boy" thing, right? And you're lucky...none of the drama, as you would have had with a girl!

Kori said...

Oh no!

He's one tough cookie.

Unknown said...

Poor Alex! Man, that sucks. Thats so funny that he was just all casual about it though. My brother in law did the same thing a few years a go and he had the surgery, he said it really wasn't bad at all. Good luck and hang in there!

Melissa B. said...

Yikes! If this were my child, we'd have quite a bit of shrieking, etc., involved. No mellow fellows in this neck of the woods! Hey, BTW, I'm giving away an actual PRIZE for Sx3 today...come play along!

Wep said...

OH NO! I hope he's feeling better :)

Tracy P. said...

Those drs are so dang picky about that growth plate! We had the broken toe incident last summer close to the growth plate. Thankfully they let us off without surgery, but we got the huge boot to protect it for a month. Hope Alex can heal without the surgery!

Adiel | Rose Gold Lining said...

Poor Al! Hope he gets better soon!

Mariah said...

I never rush my kids to the Dr. either, and get all kinds of weird looks when the Dr. asks if I have given them anything for pain

Kim said...

Oh no! Maddy fell at the skating rink and her wrist was swollen, but after she calmed down, she said it was a little better. So I gave her tylenol, wrapped it in an Ace bandage and put her to bed, thinking I'd take her to the doctor in the morning just in case. Oh yeah, it was broken, so I am thinking the Mother of the Year award should be mine. :)

Glad he's okay!