Another ER Visit

It was a long, long week at our house.  The kids passed around illnesses ranging from 105 fevers to ear infections and in the middle of it all, Chris hopped on a plane to Dallas for another business trip.  He sent me this text from the airport.  

Dropping the kids off was a breeze.  Matteo didn't even give a hug goodbye.  He was so pumped about coloring with his friends.  That was a nice way to start a work trip.

I was still smiling after reading Chris' text when I opened up the other text I had received.  This one was from Celina.

Soren pushed Matteo down the stairs and he is crying a lot because his arm is hurting.  I don't think it's broken, but I'm not sure.  One arm is bigger than the other one. 

We hadn't received the bill from Soren's fishhook ER visit and back to the hospital I was headed with another injured kid.  I wasn't even sure Matteo's arm was even broken though.  You had to look closely to notice the swelling, but then Celina mentioned that when she lifted his arm, she heard a crackling sound.  She imitated the sound and there was nothing lost in translation.  That's no sound a bone should make.

Matteo is a stoic little boy.  Once he stopped crying after he fell, he remained pretty calm.  He wanted to lie on the couch or sit in someone's lap instead of playing, but if you didn't notice his arm limp at his side, he could have fooled you that he wasn't injured.  He even looked slightly amused about getting to ride in a Radio Flyer wagon at the children's hospital and used his good arm to curiously point at pictures in the books I brought to read to him while we waited.

The triage nurse, the ER nurse and the ER doctor all examined Matteo's arm, noted his demeanor and decided he must be suffering from "nursemaid's elbow," even as they admitted that diagnosis didn't make much sense since such an injury is caused by pulling on the arm and not falling on it like Matteo had. I called Chris and complained that I was sitting in the ER for something I could have probably fixed myself and he made me promise I'd leave fixing his future middle linebacker's arm to the professionals.  The professional tried twisting the ligament in Matteo's arm back into place, he screamed, the doctor apologized and sent Matteo straight for an x-ray.

Matteo's arm was broken.  He had a fracture of his supracondylar humerus, to be exact.  The humerus is the upper arm bone between the shoulder and elbow and I think "supracondylar" means "above the elbow." The location of the fracture is a spot in the humerus that is much weaker in young children than adults, which is why the fracture Matteo experienced is the most fracture to occur in children.  


A supracondylar humerus fracture can cause complications, such as nerve damage and impaired circulation, and sometimes requires surgery (in addition casting) to correct.  Based on what the doctor could see in the x-ray, she suspected Matteo might need surgery.  She sent Matteo home with a splint and some painkillers, and told us to follow up with the orthopedic the next day.

I called the next morning and the nurse I spoke to said that if he needed surgery, they would want to do it that day, which meant that poor Matteo was cut off of all food and drink from that point on.  This also meant poor Celina, because she was the one at home with a kid she wasn't allowed to feed all day.  (I'm telling you, this woman is earning her stripes with our family!)

Thankfully surgery wasn't required and I let Matteo tear into the snacks we had brought with us before they sat him down to put a cast on his arm.  They brought out samples of the colors available and he chose a blue cast. 

Now to keep our fingers crossed that his arm heals quickly and he only needs to have the cast for the estimated four weeks. 

Our little man with his new cast.