This morning Gage, picked up one of the large sticks that lived in the tree house, held it up in the air to began his fight with some imaginary bad guy and stepped back. He stepped back, as the bad guy must have begun his onslaught, stepped back into empty space. And he fell and fell and fell. He fell about 6 feet to the dirt. One of those falls that happen in slow motion as well as so fast your stomach churns. I know this because we were about 15 feet away. I saw and felt the fall. The sound of his landing was a sickening splat. I knew from the landing, from the sound more than the sight that it was not a good landing. Something was wrong.
I sprinted to his still body on the ground as he erupted into screams. "Don't move!", I instructed. Let's figure out what is wrong before you get up. Trying to remember to breath, to stay calm. Of course he immediately jumped up and kept up his screaming. Screams of pain. I saw a bump on his arm and I knew, I just knew his arm was broken.
After some help from his teacher and her fireman husband we headed off to the emergency room, followed by Kate another mom who had just dropped off her daughter at the school, was childless and wiling to help with Imogen. (Thank you Kate!!!) Again, I remembered to breath, to stay calm as I drove to the emergency room while my beloved first born sobbed in the back seat. His cries were so sad, filled with so much pain, all he wanted was for me to help him. "Help me, Mama!" he pleaded "Help me, Mama! - please help me". The worst thing a mother can hear, help me, when there is absolutely nothing I can do. Nothing. I am so sorry honey, so sorry.
We finally got to the emergency and got the relief that I could not give, morphine. Aw morphine, my son changed from a screaming mess of pain, into a personable, friendly patient. "thank you for helping me", he says to the nurse post-morphine. The x-ray showed a buckle brake. A very common brake for these young people, whose bones are so flexible. Instead of braking or fracturing, his bones compressed. The x-ray shows a bump on either side of the bone where the break took place. A buckle brake.
Here is my doped up son just after getting home
For about two days he needed to have ibuprofen somewhat regularly, but after that no pain. He was soon climbing, running and falling on his arm with no apparent repercussions. Soon the biggest irritant was the sling he had to wear with his splint. The splint they originally put on to give his arm room for swelling. He shed the sling whenever he could, even to read to his sister.
10 days later he got his cast. A glow-in-the-dark cast he is incredibly proud of. So in love with the cast that he won't let anyone sign it. :)