Catching a Break

Jeffrey was the reason I was even still in town and not yet at work. He had forgotten his homework folder, so I dropped it off at his school, since the bus had already picked him up. I had just passed the middle school when I got the call. It was the nurse at the middle school, informing me that Chris had been in gym class and had had a foul.

A foul? So, he was being disciplined?

No, not that kind of foul. This foul involved bodily injury. I turned the van around and headed to the school.

Chris is no stranger to bodily injuries, of course. In fact, he is what we'd like to call a frequent flyer in the orthopedic department. The first bone he broke was his tibia in 2008 when he was skiing. Then he broke his wrist in September of 2009. In mid-January of this year, he fractured his left arm while playing indoor soccer. I didn't blog about it because, well, how many times can I write about Chris and his broken bones?

This time, he was running in gym class and while turning a corner, slipped on some sand and down he went. He broke the same arm he broke in January, only this time, it was worse. See?

So we spent the day at the hospital and you know how much fun that can be. G met us at the ER and we got Chris X-rayed and morphine and set up upstairs in a room because the ortho doctor would be there in the afternoon to do the "reduction". That's code for surgery to set his arm straight. Here he is all prepped for surgery.

He didn't get to come home until late that night because he had to pass their rules for going home which was to be able to pee, walk, and keep oral pain meds down. He passed the first two but his dinner came back up so he had to wait before he could try the 3rd test. That's anesthesia for you.

The good news is now he's all casted and comfortable. The bad news is he can't play soccer this spring, even after he transitions from the long cast he has on now to a short cast because it is a re-break. Yes, no doubt, that arm was still weak from the fracture in January and was the reason for the worse break this time around.

Tune in next year to see which bone he breaks. But it's so common now that I may forget to write about it. Or even better, it won't happen.