The story of the wrist

On September 16th, our little girl decided that she could reach the monkey bars if she jumped off the platform at the local school playground. I turned my head to look at her right when she launched off the platform. Her fingers just touched the bar, but she wasn't able to grab them. Her body started to tilt backwards towards the platform she jumped off of as she fell to the ground. As I was running towards her, all I was watching was her head: she missed hitting the metal platform by about 2 inches.

I was so relieved that she didn't hit her head that I didn't suspect anything else was wrong. I gave plenty of snuggles and tried to get her to calm down after the fall. When we finally stood up to try to play again, she grabbed her wrist and told me it felt funny. We walked over to the swings to try swinging things out. She couldn't grab the swing chain. We decided to walk home.

After a piggy ride back home, we iced her wrist and gave her some tylenol. The pain started getting worse, and we started talking about whether or not we should go into the ER. She begged us not to go to the ER, and the tylenol was kicking in so we opted to stay at home. After a long night of icing and dosing tylenol, we called our primary care at 7am to ask him to order x-rays.

We left the imaging center with the x-rays in our hands to take them to the primary care's office. I peeked at them in the car....there was no question the wrist was broken. Our primary care got us into a hand and wrist specialist orthopedist that same day!

(Splint)

The doctor opted to put on a temporary splint to let the swelling go down. We went back to his office two days later for a regular cast. Then, he wanted us to come back a week later for a follow-up X-ray.

(Cast Number One below the elbow)

This is when the problems started. The bone slipped out of place. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great. It was at this third appointment that he mentioned the possibility of surgery and pins. At this point, I started tearing up in fear of my little girl needing anesthesia. I explained the drug allergies she's already experienced. Then, the world started getting sparkly, like fireworks were going off in my head! I found a chair and threw my head down between my legs. The doctor put me on the patient bed. Almost passing out was not my finest healthcare moment :)

(Cast Number Two above the elbow)

So, she was given another new cast, and we went back to the office again five days later. The bone slipped again just a little bit, and the doctor decided he wasn't comfortable leaving it where it was. He opted to re-set it which meant she needed semi-conscious surgery.

Oddly enough, I felt okay with this decision. She did great during the surgery! We're keeping her as still as possible to not jar the wrist. We'll go back into the office on Monday to make sure the wrist hasn't moved again!