Saturday, August 21, 2010

6 years and 2 weeks

That's how long it took.

Do you know for what??

For the first of my children to break a bone.

2 weeks after his 6th birthday, Trevor broke his right collarbone. Daddy, Blake and Izzy were present in the room when it happened. Me... I was 692 miles away on vacation in upstate New York!!! Talk about feeling helpless!!

It all started because t-ball was canceled. Although the weather seemed nice, apparently there was standing water on the field.

During the morning, a used disposable diaper had been ripped apart and the little beads that absorb the moisture were all over the floor of the boys room. So Daddy wanted to vacuum it up. He did so with all three kids in the room (kudos to him, but I think that's crazy... I would have put a movie on and left them downstairs!).

As he vacuumed he decided to clean the rest of their room, including under a chair in the corner where the cats sleep. So he moved the chair out of the corner of the room, and into the middle and the kids played on it.

(Can you figure out what happened yet??).

Both boys were on the chair (I have no idea where Izzy was)... T was sitting on it, and B climbed up the back of the chair (which is normal, but has no effect when the chair is in the corner). B climbed up... the chair tipped over... T flew out of the chair, and whacked his collarbone on the bunk bed post.

Immediately, two things were true... Trevor felt no pain and Daddy KNEW it was broken. He KNEW because he broke his twice as a kid. I later learned that his Dad broke his once so it's a requirement for the oldest son on that side of the family. On the plus side, Daddy's younger brother didn't break his, so we can hope B won't either!!

After finding Aunt Kate to come stay with B and Iz, Daddy took T to the ER. It took an x-ray, a 3-minute visit by the Dr, and a $450 ER bill to tell us what we already knew. It took $50 to get T a sling that he HATED (because it has teddy bears and balloons on it and is very babyish).

On Sunday I came home. Nothing much had changed. Monday, as recommended by the ER doc, I took him to an orthopedist to recheck it and see if anything else needed to be done. She said it was fine, nothing to worry about, sling for 4 weeks, no swimming, t-ball etc, and she'd recheck it in a month.

A few days later Aunt Kate provided a great fix for the sling....

For the most part Trev has been pretty good during this last month. But the realization that he couldn't play t-ball (3 weeks left) or swim for the week of summer camp (which started 2 days after he broke it) made him REALLY mad. Mostly because it was Blake's 'fault' that he was injured, but Blake was able to do all those activities. The other part of the problem is that it's never hurt him. It's hard to stop a 6-year-old from being active when the broken bone doesn't hurt!!!

I've tried to take pictures of the two sides, but it's very hard to see anything in pictures. At first there was a visible difference, and even now there is still a bump on the side he broke. I just hope that doesn't mean it healed wrong!!!

Tuesday is his follow up appointment with new x-rays scheduled. In the last week he's been swimming and I even let him play the last week of t-ball (lefty of course!). I'm just hoping that the x-ray shows all is well!!!

1 comment:

Linda N. said...

Sounds like Trevor is a real trooper! I'm glad he wasn't in any pain.

Sandra broke her collarbone when she was a baby and she said she can still feel a bump on it, but she's never had any problems functionality-wise. So, I'm sure Trevor's bump won't be a problem. :)