As many of you know, I'm new to parenting (oldest is 3) and the past month has been a trying one.
Our 3 yr old broke his left femur, exactly a month ago today. We honestly have no idea how he did it, b/c both the wife and I were out of the room. He had been upset due to having to pick up playdoh and when I went back to the room, he was on the floor saying his leg hurt. Thinking he was just not wanting to pick up, I picked him up and tried to get him to stand up on his leg, but he couldn't. A trip to the ER, they did an xray and found that he did in fact break his leg. Here is the xray:
We spent a total of 8 hrs in the ER and it sucked. I figured they would send DHS to see us, but I had no idea they would send as many people as they did. In all, we talked to 2 Police Officers, a child abuse detective, a DHS worker and finally a child abuse pediatrician. I'll tell you this, I don't want to wish that on anyone. No matter how bad we felt about Braydon breaking his leg, talking to all those people, just magnified the guilt 100X. It made us feel like complete shit.
After a 5 day stay in the Childrens hospital and a surgery to place 2 flexible rods in his leg, we were finally able to come home. He has been wearing a brace since the surgery, which is about as cumbersome as anything I've seen. It starts around his waste and goes down his leg. Here is a quick pic:
After carrying him around for a couple days, I finally resorted to bringing inside our Red Ryder wagon and we started just pulling him around the house. When I had asked the doctor, if the rods would work themselves out and force through the skin, he said not to worry because it had only happened to one kid. Well, our luck would have it, that both of his poked through the skin at different times. Two surgeries later, he has no rods left, which was a complete 180 in how he acted before and after they took them out. Here is one of them, beside a ruler for comparison:
Anyway, hopefully after our doctor visit on Friday, we'll be able to take the brace off and he can walk. Not sure if he will, he's still very apprehensive when we take it off, but we'll have to work through it.
It's been a very expensive lesson in patience and I can tell you it's been a learning experience as well. So much for the Wine Herf, I always heard that life gets in the way when you're making plans, but never would I have imagined it would happen to us. Now to find time to enjoy a cigar, after this month of Hell.
Our 3 yr old broke his left femur, exactly a month ago today. We honestly have no idea how he did it, b/c both the wife and I were out of the room. He had been upset due to having to pick up playdoh and when I went back to the room, he was on the floor saying his leg hurt. Thinking he was just not wanting to pick up, I picked him up and tried to get him to stand up on his leg, but he couldn't. A trip to the ER, they did an xray and found that he did in fact break his leg. Here is the xray:
We spent a total of 8 hrs in the ER and it sucked. I figured they would send DHS to see us, but I had no idea they would send as many people as they did. In all, we talked to 2 Police Officers, a child abuse detective, a DHS worker and finally a child abuse pediatrician. I'll tell you this, I don't want to wish that on anyone. No matter how bad we felt about Braydon breaking his leg, talking to all those people, just magnified the guilt 100X. It made us feel like complete shit.
After a 5 day stay in the Childrens hospital and a surgery to place 2 flexible rods in his leg, we were finally able to come home. He has been wearing a brace since the surgery, which is about as cumbersome as anything I've seen. It starts around his waste and goes down his leg. Here is a quick pic:
After carrying him around for a couple days, I finally resorted to bringing inside our Red Ryder wagon and we started just pulling him around the house. When I had asked the doctor, if the rods would work themselves out and force through the skin, he said not to worry because it had only happened to one kid. Well, our luck would have it, that both of his poked through the skin at different times. Two surgeries later, he has no rods left, which was a complete 180 in how he acted before and after they took them out. Here is one of them, beside a ruler for comparison:
Anyway, hopefully after our doctor visit on Friday, we'll be able to take the brace off and he can walk. Not sure if he will, he's still very apprehensive when we take it off, but we'll have to work through it.
It's been a very expensive lesson in patience and I can tell you it's been a learning experience as well. So much for the Wine Herf, I always heard that life gets in the way when you're making plans, but never would I have imagined it would happen to us. Now to find time to enjoy a cigar, after this month of Hell.
