Boys and broken bones

Lucas fractured his left clavicle on Tuesday.

At daycare.

Because he wasn't paying attention walking down the stairs and there wasn't a teacher at the midpoint in the stairs (that is a whole other post) and he fell-down three stairs.

Initially the teachers thought he just hit his head so they were looking for signs of a concussion. But they assured me he was acting fine. After a few minutes with an ice pack, he was up riding bikes with his friends.

But when they tried to change his diaper before nap, things changed. He was screaming, pointing to his arm. They called me back but I wasn't in my office. So they called Marc and he left to get him.

so after two different doctor visits and a whole bunch of x-rays, they diagnosed it as a fractured left clavicle. And the recovery? 5 weeks of no jumping, running, bike riding-anything and everything a little boy likes to do. And he has to be in a sling except for when he sleeps. The sling they gave us is too big and the dr told us to angle his arm so it is above his heart. Well, there is no way we can do that with this sling. I was up most of Tuesday night thinking that I was going to do more damage and Lucas would have a deformed collar bone because I wasn't capable enough to put on the sling correctly.

I talked to the nurse practitioner yesterday and she said we were told wrong info-there is no way we could position his arm like that. she said that as long as the arm was at a right angle, and his wrist was across his belly, the collarbone would set correctly. Now we just have to pin the sling to his t shirt to make sure it doesn't slip during the day.

The good news is that most kids are OK after a week or two with the sling! And he has done well the past two days-last night he was even playing and today he is acting more like himself. He also slept through the night.

Little boys and their bones . . .