Too Much Excitement

Nate's a busy boy and loves to keep things exciting.  A few days after we returned home from our summer vacation, we were visiting some friends when Nate broke his arm - not because he was jumping on a trampoline, but because he decided to jump off the trampoline.  After our emergency room visit, we went home thinking it would be no big deal, but the ER doctor suggested that we needed to visit an orthopedic surgeon.   So, I diligently called Monday morning (because of course he would break his arm on a Friday night, when all the Urgent Care centers were closed).  After looking at the Xrays, the doctor scheduled us for surgery the next morning.     



Tuesday, 7:00 AM - the presurgery silly juice made this boy a very cranky kid.



After surgery



This is not a picture of Nate's arm, but he essentially ended up with 3 of these things in his elbow for 6 weeks (and yes they did stick out that far).  I guess they put the pins on the outside of the skin for easy removal.  For the first week, he only had a soft cast on and I was so worried that he would bump his pins - it just sounded so painful.  After a week, they put a hard cast on him, and I didn't have to worry so much about him bumping it, but under no conditions was he to get his cast wet because of the high risk of infection (the pins go directly into the bone).  I wanted to tell the doctor, yeah right, try telling that to a 3 year old, but somehow I think he understood, because he has been unusually cooperative.  Also to limit the risk of infection we will have to have his cast changed every 2 weeks and he will be on daily antibiotics for the whole 6 weeks.