Jenson’s Broken Wrist Report

I pretty much forgot to mention that Jenson broke his wrist 2.5 weeks ago.  On the Monday after his birthday party (October 13), he fell when he was standing up against the ottoman and tried to grab on to a push toy and the toy moved.  I think he was just starting to think about walking, but he didn’t quite have the “moving the feet” thing down.  We got home early from work to take him to his 12 month appointment (conveniently), and he was still favoring that arm (but also still using it some).  He wouldn’t crawl, but he was still moving his arm and hand, so we really couldn’t tell what he actually hurt.

The Dr. checked him out pretty thoroughly, moving his arm, pressing on it, checking his collarbone, and Jenson didn’t flinch or cry or show any reaction, so the Dr. said that must just be sore and to call back if it doesn’t get better.  He also had to get lots of vaccines during that appointment, so it was a pretty rough appointment.  It was such a nice day, so we decided to go to the Zoo after his appointment.  It was close to closing time, so we didn’t stay long…checked out the manatees, aquarium, and a couple of other areas.  He got a little fussy towards the end – either from the vaccines or his arm.

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The next day his sitter said he was doing okay, but was still favoring that arm and wouldn’t crawl much.  I fretted about it for awhile and finally decided to call the Dr. and spoke with one of the nurses.  She looked at the notes and said, “okay, the Dr. saw no bruising, no swelling, no reaction to touch…but I guess we can order an X-ray if that’s what you want.”  Yes please…something just isn’t right.  At this point, I assumed it was his shoulder since he wouldn’t put pressure on the arm when in a crawling position – I thought maybe he separated it or something like that.  I’ve separated my shoulder before, and you can do certain movements without pain, but not others…which is why I didn’t know I injured mine until several hours later (thought it was just a twinge until the swelling set in a I couldn’t lift my arm).  I didn’t think anything was broken…just wanted the piece of mind to make sure .

We left work and took him to a Nationwide Children’s Hospital urgent care for X-rays.  He cried SO hard during the X-rays.  He cried extra hard while they were x-raying his wrist, but I just assumed because it was the last ones they did – and his cried had been getting worse through the whole process.  I knew something what wrong for sure at that point.  Since we didn’t know what part of his arm was hurting, they had to take a lot of X-rays and we just tried to sing to him and comfort him as best as he could while he was strapped down to the board.  That was the hardest part.

We sat in the waiting room for a bit and they called us back to the room to talk to the doctor, which was a sure sign that they found something.  She put us on speaker phone with Jenson’s Dr., who had read the X-ray, and he told us that his wrist was fractured.  Bone bones were broken and it was an angulated fracture, so he suggested that we go to Children’s Hospital so that they could decide whether it needed set, and that the Urgent Care probably wouldn’t want to cast him since is so young.  We went home first so we could give Jenson and Boof dinner since we knew we could be at Children’s until very, very late.  We packed some snacks and toys for entertainment and headed to Children’s.  We were there for 3 hours or so, but we were in a private room at that point, so it wasn’t so bad.  Lo was even able to get the Blue Jackets game on tv in the room.  The orthopedic doctors decided it didn’t need set, so we just had to wait for someone to come by to cast it.  It was pretty late, so eventually we got him to nap in the stroller until the guy arrived to cast.  He did well while they put the cast on…I held him on my lap.

I stayed home with him for the next two days – he was still slightly fevered from his vaccines, and was extra clingy of course.  He was happy though.  I just needed to be with him – and I had an awesome time being with him all day.  By the 3rd day with his cast, he was doing really well with it and figured out how to get around by crawling and sliding his casted arm along the floor.  We put a cut off sock over the cast because he was rubbing it against his face and it’s really rough – makes it much easier to slide on the wood floors too.  From that point on, you’d barely know that he has a broken wrist or a cast.  We were initially told that he’d have to wear it for 4-6 weeks, but after he saw the ortho docs the next week, they said he could get the cast off in 2 weeks – so he gets it off after only 3.5 weeks – and right before our trip to Vegas!

So sleeping has been a struggle…but he also got his top two teeth during this time…but we are working on it.  Other than having to bag his arm during baths and meals, and having to cut the cuff of the sleeve off a few shirts and sleepers, it hasn’t been that hard to manage.  Surprisingly, a cast on a one year old gets surprisingly stinky, surprisingly quick!  I have to admit, I’m nervous about getting his cast off – I’ll want to put him in a bubble for a bit I’m sure, but I’m just glad we found out that his wrist was broken so quickly – it’s hard when a one year old can’t tell you that something hurts.  So many people told us about how their babies broke bones and they didn’t know about it for days or weeks!  We kept meaning to sign his cast, and finally did.  I signed it in the dark while he was sleeping, so the “mom” got cut off a little.  Lo wrote “Da” and Boof, and our friends signed it while they were here for trick-or-treat.