He did what?

Lance broke his leg. Yep, you read that right. Lance broke his leg. He’s got a non-displaced fracture below his right knee.

Of course, we didn’t know that until Monday. The incident happened on Saturday afternoon or evening. At the time, I wasn’t sure what had happened. It could have been anything.

Sunday he wasn’t moving around much, so I was worried. I thought maybe he had pulled something or over extended something and he was just sore. It is hard to watch a very active toddler go from a runner and climber to a slow painful crawler. He did finally start “attempting” to walk on in Sunday night but it was clear he was in pain and it was not something he wanted to be doing (nevermind that his active spirit was driving him to).

Monday rolled around and while he was still “trying” to walk on it, he wasn’t having any luck. A limp doesn’t fit him well. So we called the doctor. They got us in fairly quickly. She took a look at him and didn’t see what was bothering him as being “clearly evident.” To be safe, she sent me to the hospital to get some x-rays done. So we did that. We then came home and he napped (exhausted) and I waited for the doctor to call back.

The call came at 2:45pm. We didn’t get out of the x-rays until after 1pm. I hear on the phone, “He’s got a fracture in his thigh, can you get to the orthopedist’s office by 3:30pm?” I am looking at the clock and thinking, YES! Of course, I had to go the total opposite direction from the orthopede’s office to go back to the hospital and get a copy of Lance’s x-rays so that they orthopede would have them. I MADE IT!

The orthopedist was really nice. He was looking at the x-rays. Let’s just say that there was a miscommunication all the way around. I am not sure where it fell apart but that’s why specialists read their own x-rays! He had been told that it was in his hip. That was going to mean a trip down to the medical center to Texas Children’s Hospital. Thank goodness that wasn’t what was involved. And obviously it wasn’t the thigh either!

He showed me where he thought the problem was. The x-ray wasn’t super clear, so he had them do another round of x-rays at different angles. Lance didn’t like these any more than the ones earlier in the day. Sure enough, the area of concern was a fracture. Bummer!

So we take little Lance in for a long-leg cast. We picked out green. He has a cast from his foot up to almost his hip, right below the diaper area. He has to wear it 3 weeks.

So just how did it happen? Well we didn’t know. Through all this we didn’t know. The older boys didn’t come clean on what happened. Not sure it was even their fault. After the cast was put on and we were on our way home, I issued a full blown interrogation. The “truth” came out. Evidently Lance fell on the stairs and hit his leg on the edge of one of the steps right below the knee. Go figure that is where the crack in the bone is.

The worst part of all this is that it is summer. Texas. Summer. You get the idea. It is hot and humid and miserable! ICK! I can’t imagine having a cast on my entire leg right now. Lance, however, is handling it fairly well. He’s clingy and grumpy but I wouldn’t expect much less from someone with a broken leg, especially from someone who simply does not understand why he has this “thing” on his leg. Who simply does not understand why he could walk and now couldn’t.

The best part is that the orthopedist said that in 2-3 days most children adapt to it very well and are up and walking again, cast in tow. I wasn’t to stop him. Sure enough last night he took a few steps across the room. It was slow. It was unsteady. It was with a stern look of frustration. BUT HE WAS WALKING! YAY! Today was better.

He can still get around a lot faster crawling and dragging it behind him, but he’s trying to walk more and more. He can climb onto the couch with it. He hasn’t tried the stairs yet. I think that scares us most. He did crawl over to them, look at them, then crawled away. We have to watch him if he doesn’t have his little “shoe” on and he hits the hard floor because he doesn’t have any grip or traction. Fortunately, he just stops when he is unstable and lets you know he needs help.

I let the boys sign his cast today. I was holding off. I didn’t want to freak him out. I wanted him to “adjust” to the cast before we started decorating it. I even let him scribble on it too. He did just fine. He got upset when I put up the Sharpie.

I’ll post pictures when I get a free moment.