our kid broke

cole came in the house a little over 3 weeks ago screaming that he felt like he was "going to die" and holding his arm. oh dear. He fell at the neighbors house off their slide and must have landed weird on it. He calmed down and we watched him carefully the next few days. He no longer complained but he also wouldn't put his arm totally straight. He was playing and even writing with it, but it just all looked a bit awkward so we took him in. He thought the X-rays were awesome and the Doctor let him see the pictures of his bones. The X ray showed no break so we thought we were good to go...until the radiologist who specializes in pediatrics called the dr. up and said they thought there was a significant enough amount of swelling that could actually be hiding a fracture so they wanted it splinted for a week.

cole was a champ through all of this until they got the HUGE splint on...then he started to cry "mom, this thing looks so stupid! The kids at school are going to think I look dumb!" WHAT! my kinder-gardener cares what it looks like more than the fact that his arm may actually be broken? poor kid.

so after a week they re-x-rayed, still found no break, but decided due to where he said it hurt it was a fracture of the radial head (elbow) which was being masked in the x-rays by his growth plate.

so after all that we left the doctor with this...

which he was TOTALLY fine with. Apparently casts look WAY more cool that splints. He didn't care at all, as long as he got blue and his friends could write on it. I think his teacher even helped him feel cool with the splint on account of the new nick name she gave him..."muscles".

daddy adorned him with BYU symbols as soon as he got his hands on a cool enough marker. and watching kinder-gardeners sign this thing was hilarious. He even got to have some of his St. George buddies sign it when we headed down for a sealing last week.

he looks really broken up about it huh?

well as of Tues it is off. it was only a two week deal. and he was crazy brave when they pulled out the saw to get it off, even when they nicked him he assured the nurse "It's ok, it's only bleeding a tiny bit". if he is using it normally by the end of the week, then he is good to go...here's hoping!

Now if I could just get him back to writing with his right hand...