Elliot's Broken Wrist

Tuesday night, Elliot took a tumble down the basement stairs and fractured two bones on the underside of his wrist, the ulna and the radius. RIGHT as the first Small Group of the semester was getting started in our living room upstairs. I took him to urgent care that night, where they put him in a splint with a sling, and the next day, an orthopedic doctor put him in a hard cast for the next month, after which we go back for more x-rays and, hopefully, removal of said cast.

By the time Small Group ended Tuesday night and we got to the pediatric urgent care place, the decks were stacked against us. It was two hours past Elliot's bedtime, he was crashing from eating a billion cookies earlier in the night, he fell asleep in the car on the way there so we had to wake him up, and he was in a whole lot of pain - all of which left him TERRIFIED, and he responded to the exam like a caged animal, kicking and screaming. Literally. I didn't know whether to feel worse for my poor, scared, hurting boy, or the doctors he was physically fighting. He wouldn't even accept their offer of a lollipop. He said no to every flavor choice they gave him, until finally he yelled, "No! I don't want ANY of that stuff!"

Well, OK then. He was just so done.

The next afternoon at the orthopedic doctor's office, Elliot was a completely different person. He was super chatty with the nurse, discussing how there are bones in his body to help him move, and how he broke some of those bones. He talked about his yellow rain boots and how they were too small and he shouldn't have been wearing them on the stairs. And he loved looking at the pictures of his bones INSIDE HIS BODY on their big computer screen. He picked a dark blue cast and sat there very calmly as they wrapped it around his arm. No kicking, no pushing, no screaming - just some minor hesitation and a whimper or two. It's amazing what a good night's sleep and a little experience can do for a scared little boy.

They were probably wondering why I was so happy to leave that appointment with a happy, chatty son... with a blue lollipop in his mouth.