Our First Broken Bone

Last Monday evening Jason fell while riding his bike and broke his leg. No bruises, scrapes, or bleeding – just a broken leg. Justin was outside with him, but didn’t see what had happened. He recently advanced to using a larger bike and we think he was riding down the hill in front of our house and turned too quickly to turn into the driveway. I was in the office when I heard him crying and went outside to make sure he was okay. He didn’t want to walk at all so I picked him up and carried him inside. As we were walking inside he said, “a show will make me better.” I set him on the couch and gave him his request and put on a show. But it didn’t make him better and he didn’t stop crying. At one point he was crying so hard I told him that I’d turn off the show if he didn’t stop. (Of course I feel terrible saying that now) Jason is typically a pretty tough kid. He doesn’t cry when he gets shots and if he does get hurt he gets over it pretty quickly. His leg looked fine, no swelling, nothing out of place, but he was clearly in pain and every time we even touched his right leg he would cry harder. We decided to be safe and have Justin take him to the closest Urgent Care 20 minutes away. After x-rays it was confirmed that Jason’s tibia bone was fractured and he would need a cast. Fortunately, the fracture was not his in growth plate and surgery wouldn’t be necessary. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the cast that night. They put a splint on his leg from his toes to his upper thigh and told us to call an orthopedic in the morning. Jason woke up several times during the night. He was so uncomfortable and completely helpless. We put the baby monitor in his room so we’d hear him if he woke up and needed anything. Needless to say he did a lot of this the next day.

Thankfully, we were able to get an appointment at Children’s in Bellevue Tuesday afternoon and they put on his huge cast – again, from his toes to his upper thigh.

Jason requested his cast be blue

AND green!

(He’s looking through the pictures on Justin’s phone to keep him distracted)

We were given a boot for Jason to use once he felt comfortable enough to put weight on his foot, but he preferred to be carried around. Jason is a big kid and his cast his heavy and awkward so we hoped he could figure out how to be more independent quickly. Thankfully, these last few days he’s gotten more comfortable and today he even managed to wobble upstairs to get a game he wanted to play. Justin made chocolate chip cookies this afternoon and Jason surprised us all by sneaking into the kitchen to snag himself a few chocolate chips.

He’s also in good spirits. He took it hard at first. At swim lessons last Monday we found out he had passed his level and so we enrolled him in the next session to start after spring break. He missed the last day of swim lessons on Wednesday and we obviously had to cancel taking more. He’ll hopefully get his cast off at the end of the month – after nearly 5 weeks. Jason is a very independent kid and plays really well on his own so to lose his mobility is tough (for both of us). I really limit the amount of TV, computer, and gaming my kids are exposed to so finding alternatives to “plugging him in” takes much more effort on my part. Grandma Fletcher visited on Wednesday afternoon and brought Jason a UNO Cars 2 game which we’ve all played countless times since. We’ve also read lots of books and assembled several puzzles.

Jason thought it was pretty special that his friends from preschool made him a card and sugar cookies in the shapes of dinosaurs and the letter x since he missed preschool on Thursday (that was theme and the letter of the week). He was also thrilled to receive some stickers and a card from his buddy Mitchell in Auburn.

This week is spring break and the girls will be home to help keep Jason entertained and comfortable. We’re hopeful that by Wednesday when two of his cousins arrive he’ll have figured out how to get around well enough to enjoy the short time we have with them.