Graigry Breaks his arm

Boys will be boys.

We went to what I like to call, "The park that Eric built" for a family home evening on May 13. We walked to the park; it's only four streets over and then did a little park pick up and then let the kids play.

All was well until it was time to go. We were telling the kids to stop and it was time to walk back. Graigry was swinging and decided he'd try to fly. Others in my family say that I told him to jump. Jump he did and he landed on his right arm. He got up complaining/crying-ish that his arm hurt. His watch was broken, so someone picked that up while Graigry walked over to Eric.

Eric and I figured he was over reacting, had a bump and would be fine. Graigry showed Eric his arm. Eric held up the arm and I saw the wrist with a defined 'U' shape in it.

"It's broken. Go get the car." Eric's face was slightly shocked, yet stern and going into emergency mode. Aurora and I ran as fast as we could back to the house, got the insurance card, grabbed the keys to the gold van, and headed back toward the park.

We met the rest of the family within about two blocks. Graigry's arm was in a sling created with Eric's Mesa College sweatshirt. I gave Eric the insurance card, they got into the car and headed toward Community East Hospital and the rest of us walked back home. I called Matt Dunahee to meet Eric there in order to give Graigry a blessing.

After about an hour, kids were in route to bed, Matt came over to the house and told me to go to the hospital. I told him I was fine. "Go be with your son. I'll stay with the kids 'til you get back." So I went.

They had cut his school shirt off of him and had an IV for pain. Graigry was doing just fine. The nurses said that he was very brave and hardly cried. It was almost 9 (I think) before Graigry got the ice pack and sling and release to go.

After wrapping it up, we were told that we would need to call the orthopedic surgeon in the morning to schedule an appointment for Thursday or Friday. They would do "surgery" which was about a 10 minute procedure to reset the bones and then cast it. There would be no swimming for about 8 weeks (which made the little man unhappy). He did not have an easy time sleeping the next three nights as his arm was hot and he couldn't get comfortable with a sling around his neck. I felt for the poor boy.

He got his cast that Friday morning.

I let his teacher know what had happened the night of the break. Apparently there were classmates lined up to help Graigry with his classwork while he was in the sling. He was excited to learn to write with both hands. I helped at home with some longer writing sentences.

He seemed to do okay, accept with the no swimming part, especially when we finally had the pool up. Once we wrapped it in plastic bags, but that leaked. Another time we...

Olympic torch arm!

...duct taped it after plastic bagging it. It took about 10 minutes to get it all "waterproof" and then the little man was only in the pool for about 15 minutes and water still found a spot to seep through. Before he and I started ripping and cutting it off, I told him we weren't putting it back on and that he would be done swimming for the day. Graigry said he was done. Apparently, his fingers or a combination thereof, were getting squished (imagine that!) and the tape was digging into his arm when he bent it.

Thankfully he was able to get the cast of on the 18th of June, not too long into summer. We joke about not jumping out of swings with all the kids. I wonder what the next ER visit will be for and with which kid. :)