Bear Flag Blog

Yesterday evening I was out on the deck putting meat on the grill. The boys were running around in the backyard; I had just leaned over to check on them before I started to put the meat on.

Then E. started screaming.

As my wife points out, E. has only one volume setting: screaming could mean he got a splinter, or it could mean that there is an alligator on his leg. Nonetheless, it sounded serious, so I called K. out to help him while I turned off the grill and dealt with the raw meat.

She ran out and down the stairs; as soon as she saw him lying on the ground she could tell it was serious. His right wrist was folded unnaturally; his right arm below the elbow had taken the shape of a lightning bolt.

She carried him inside as I called 911. The Vienna Fire & Rescue ambulances arrived in a couple of minutes, while we packed a bag with snacks and books. I rode in the back with E. as the paramedics tried with mixed success to cajole him. Luckily B. was not working that evening, so she raced home (on the bike) to babysit the little one, allowing K. to drive to the hospital.

It was a bad but clean break. They gave E. some pain medication, then hooked up an IV (which was, I think, the most traumatic part of the hospital visit). We did some X-rays, saw the bones (yeek), and they lined up the procedure. There was some stress when Dr. Lo came by to discuss the risks of the sedative they'd be using but K. was out front calling relatives; when she came back, he had gone, and we couldn't find him for twenty minutes. But eventually we got the low down and signed off on the anesthetic.

Then we changed rooms, E. got knocked out (which his body resisted mightily, demanding extra sedative and then coming back around well in advance of schedule) and K. and I left the room while the orthopedic resident reset the bones. We returned to find E. wearing a splint and the sedative already wearing off, leading to some interesting observations from E. about how how odd it was that we all had four eyes.

E. broke his arm at about 6:45 pm. We got to the hospital a while after 7; and we got home at about midnight. This morning there was some discomfort but after a little Tylenol 3 the boy seems to be fine.

Not what we had planned for last evening - and it's certainly going to put interesting crimps in the next couple of months - but all's well that ends well, I suppose.