Stuck

I’ve never really understood the true definition of irony, so I may be wrong when I say it seems awfully ironic that the day after I blogged about how happy Zach was jumping on the neighbors trampoline, he broke his leg while doing so. The story…

On Wednesday Zach was jumping on the trampoline with a few of the neighbor girls after school/before dinner, which seemed like it was becoming a tradition. And while I didn’t see it happen (ahh... the guilt. I keep reminding myself even if I’d been standing on the trampoline with him, I doubt I could have prevented this, but the guilt remains), the girls told me he landed on a ball that was on the trampoline and fell funny. Zach told me his knee hurt. I couldn’t see any visible problems, but I could tell from the way he was crying that it wasn’t your typical give it a kiss and send him on his way injury, so I called his doctor and asked if we should head to the emergency room right away.

There are so many things I would have done differently had I been able to predict the future, and following the doctor’s office advice to come to the clinic for an x-ray is one of them. But that’s what we did, and after waiting way too long with a boy that would scream in pain if you moved his leg at all, we got our x-ray and saw the obvious break right in the middle of his femur.

After some delays with the nurses calling around to find out which hospital had a pediatric orthopedic doctor in, we were told there that neither Children’s Hospital (St. Paul nor Minneapolis) had one, so we’d have to go to Regions Hospital in St. Paul. After more debate, they called an ambulance for us, and Zach and I got to experience our first ambulance ride. At this point, Zach was pretty calm – we had figured out how to hold him so he wasn’t in any pain, and he was talking with us and the nurses, even laughing at times.

The emergency room experience was not great. By far the biggest thing I’ve learned is to push and push for a children’s hospital - they specialize for a reason! We were especially frustrated when we learned later than Regions could and should have checked him out in the ER, and then immediately referred him to Gillette’s Childrens, which was on the 4th floor of that very hospital!!!

Anyway, after lots and lots of delays and painful experiences like more x-rays and a nurse’s frustrating struggle to get an IV in Zach’s arm, it was determined that they’d splint Zach’s leg temporarily and schedule him for surgery at 7:30 AM to cast his leg using x-rays to line up the bone. This seemed odd to us, since by then it was about 1 AM… but ok.

After more delays, we were transferred up to Gillette’s for our “night” stay – from 3 to 6, when they woke us to prep Zach for surgery. I think they called it surgery since Zach had to be completely knocked out to re-set the bone. So we traveled back downstairs to Regions, and by 11 AM the surgery was done and Zach was awake. His first words when he awoke? “I’m stuck!”

Yes, he is stuck. The cast they put on him is called a spica cast; it runs from his hips to his toes on the broken (left) leg, and to just above his knee on the right leg, with a cut-out so that certain biological functions can still take place. So yes, the poor boy is immobilized. I’ll put some pictures up eventually so you can see exactly what I’m talking about, but I haven’t had the heart to take any yet, so instead I’m including some pictures I took the other day when he was in an absolutely fantastic mood, having a snack before he went outside to play and jump on the trampoline.

We got home from the hospital yesterday about 4:00; we had spent the day making sure Zach didn’t have any complications from the anesthesia (he didn’t), and learning how to care for him in the cast. The biggest challenge, by far, has been figuring out the diapering situation. I won’t go into details, I’ll just say there’s a very complicated diapering process that Zach doesn’t enjoy, and we have to be vigilant about changing him to make sure the cast doesn’t get wet.

Since we’ve gotten home, I feel like I’ve been thrust back into time – back to the days when we brought Zach home from the hospital the first time! We are both feeling scared and unsure of what we’re doing, if we’re going to hurt Zach, how to keep him comfortable and happy, etc. And not to mention entertained! Last night went ok, he slept remarkably well all things considered, including our need to change his position during the night so he doesn’t get pressure sores. And he’s starting to adapt – at 6 this morning he called out “Mama! Dada! Can you roll me over on my belly?”

So, basically, Zach is doing his best to roll (no pun intended) with the punches. He is obviously struggling to understand what’s going on, and I think it’s sinking in a bit now. Yesterday he kept telling us he wanted to go outside to play… not exactly possible the way he meant. But this morning when he told me he wanted to go downstairs, he said – mama, I can’t walk! I told him I’d carry him, and his response was – but I’m a big boy, too big to carry!

The bottom line: this cast will be on for 3.5 to 4 weeks. Which is amazingly short; if this happened to one of us, we’d have the cast on for probably a minimum of two months! These kids heal fast. So we’re taking it day by day, figuring out logistics of how to carry him, how to prop him up comfortably, the darn diapering process, and ways he can play. Grandma and Grandpa Klicka are coming to visit tomorrow, and I know that’ll do wonders for him.

We’ll keep you posted…