So, as I’m sure most of you know by now, :noah: is a rather active lad. Most recently – last night – he was swinging on the swings at a friends house and jumped. He landed, but it wasn’t pretty – and a bone was broken in the process, of course. I got a call from our friend when I was on my way home, and things didn’t sound too bad, but I could hear Noah in the background, and somehow I just knew that it was going to end with a trip to the “ED” (emergency department – apparently the local hospital doesn’t call it an ER anymore).
I got to our friends house, assessed the young man quickly, and got in touch with the pediatrician. A trip to their office was called for, so after going there, I had marching orders and paper work for a trip to the pediatric ED, but the paper work was a magic pass to go right to X-Ray – the pediatrician was fairly sure that it was fractured and would need to be set, and doing this would shorten the whole process quite a bit. I shudder to think how long it might have taken otherwise.
The security guard didn’t care about the pass and insisted we go to triage to sign in. I did so, and was showing the sign in person my “magic pass” when a man came in carrying his child, asking where he should take her because she just ate rat poison…. I never found out what happened, but I hope things went well for him as we were taken by a nurse to go to radiology. But not the radiology by the ED – nope, we had to get lost in the bowels of the hospital and go to another, out-patient radiology. Or something. I’m still not sure.
After that, we were taken back to the ED and placed in a closet, er, room. Very small room. There was a nurse, the PA, and an assistant from child development or something – she was there to hook Noah up with games and things to do to pass the time. I think that video games might have been an option, but considering his one-handedness, that would have been not such a good idea. Noah settled for an electronic “20 Questions” game, a book, and a Godzilla checkers game. Jen took over on 20Q while Noah proceeded to play chess, er checkers with me. He kept calling it chess all night long.
Upon examining the x-rays, the PA decided that we should go get some more photos taken. Noah broke his radius, which is the bigger of the two arms in the forearm. Because it’s bigger, when it’s broken, the ulna is also commonly broken. Not so in Noah’s case. We went back to x-ray because they were worried that the shock had broken the ulna elsewhere in the arm, or done something to his elbow. He wasn’t complaining, but….
Shortly after we finished that fun, we were moved to the orthopedic treatment room – that’s where all the supplies they would be needing were anyway. A little more time passes and they check the x-rays, then the PA comes back, along with a new nurse and the ortho resident.
Based on the break, they need to reduce it to cast it. To reduce it will be very painful, so they dose Noah up on ketamine and some other fun drugs, then wait. Jen and I are given the choice of staying and watching or leaving – not much of a choice, really. I am told by the PA that it’s more common for Dad to have issues than mom, and that I should just look away if it gets too bad for me – as if.
Watching them do the reduction was weird in several ways – first, there’s the fact that they’re doing things to your son. Then you have the fact that you know they know what they’re doing, but it doesn’t really seem like it at the time. Then there’s the fact that they’re doing things with an arm that probably shouldn’t be bending like that, thank you very much.
After some wrestling with his bones and muscles, they felt like they had the bone in the right place and set it. Jen and I got to sit around and wait for Noah to come out from under or for x-ray to be ready, whichever came first – they wanted to make sure that the bone was set properly before letting us leave. Notice I said properly – not correctly. Well, I guess there’s not much difference in the words – whatever. The point is that the bones need to be fairly well aligned, but not perfect, especially in a child – Noah’s bones will be able to adjust themselves and fix themselves fairly well after this. If it was an adult – Jen or myself – then we’d need surgery and pins and all kinds of other fun stuff.
After the x-ray confirmed things were ok, we went back to the ortho treatment room and waited for Noah to regain consciousness. It took a while, and included some double-vision (which was a problem for the boy, since he was trying to watch tv at the time), but he finally managed to find his way to the land of the fully awake.
Around this time it was 11:00 or so, and we finally had discharge orders and a copy of a prescription for some pain killers for Noah (but nothing for mom and dad, thanks). Jen drove her car home, I took Noah home, and after trying – unsuccessfully – to get the other sleeping kids from our friend (where everything started) Jen and I went to sleep, with Noah camped out in Ethan’s bed for the night.
I came home from Noah’s baseball game yesterday to find a “Sorry we missed you” note from the fine folks at the USPS. It seems that someone is trying to send us a certified letter and no-one was home to sign for it. Now, for most people, the question becomes: who’s sending us a certified letter? And even more importantly, why?