My Unlucky Boy

Oops, he did it again: he broke another bone. For those of you keeping track, Bryce has now broken 3 bones in 3 years.

What happened, you ask? Well, he was at his auntie's house, jumping on the trampoline with his 9 year old cousin and 2 neighbor boys. Now, before you go judging, I grew up on a trampoline, and I had given her permission to let him play on it, so if you want to reprimand someone, you're looking at her...well, sorta.

Anyway, they had some balls on the trampoline and they were all jumping to make the balls go in the air (otherwise known as "pop-corning" the balls for those of you who know trampoline speak). Bryce came down on top of a ball, which caused him to lose his balance and do some sort of spastic somersault. Resulting in a broken right tibia. It could have been so much worse, I know.

We took him to Urgent Care last night straight from auntie's house. They did not find a fracture in the xrays, but couldn't rule out the growth plates. Diagnosis: Deep bruising to the leg, NOS. They gave us tylenol with codeine and told us to follow up in 2-3 days if he wasn't feeling better.

Sleep? 1 1/2 hours total, for each of us. The tylenol with codeine did NOTHING to help his pain. He'd fall asleep and 30 seconds later jolt awake, I assume due to dreaming of his fall. The jolt would jostle his whole body and leg, which sent waves of pain back through my poor baby's body. The only decent sleep he got all night was courtesy of my poor exhausted hubby, holding him against his chest.

We discussed it this morning: something is really wrong. Either his leg IS broken, or something else is, but this was SO unlike Bryce. So, I managed to squeeze him in to the doctor this morning. The doc removed the splint to reveal his ENTIRE leg was swollen and he had bruising on his foot. His leg was NOT swollen last night and there were no bruises. So, more xrays were done (along with the obligatory blood-curdling screams of pain, the kind that make you cry because you just KNOW he hurts and you can't do anything about it). This time, the verdict was that the radiologist STILL didn't see a fracture. But, since the doctor actually witness Bryce's writhing, terrible pain, she believes there IS a fracture, but it's either too small or too deep to be seen on the xrays. They call this an occult fracture.

So, this weekend will be fun, full of splinting and sponge bathing. Then on Wednesday, daddy gets the arduous task of taking Bryce to the pediatric orthopedist. And yes, we will be asking him if he has an industrial-sized roll of bubble-paper to wrap our child in for future falls.