Broken Bone

On Sunday, July 26, Lawson and I were having a good little sleep in (past 7 am J) , so Hugh decided to take the boys to the park. They arrived home a little after 9 am. Hugh had a sullen look on his face as he carried Boone into the cabin. The first words out of his mouth were “I think this might be really bad”. 

He was right.

Boone was playing on the monkey bars and fell. Hugh thought he was hanging from them the exact same way he had been doing the last couple of weeks and just dropped to the ground (2 – 3 feet). Hugh didn’t see it happen and felt so bad. He was preoccupied with the 5 random kids that were climbing all over our golf cart at the moment of the accident! 

By 11 am Boone was still refusing to walk, so we took him into the Tisdale Hospital. We were lucky to see a doctor and have x-rays quite quickly. There was a slight bump at the bottom of his shin, but very little swelling. The doctor couldn’t see a break, but told us they don’t always show up in little kids right away. We headed out with instructions to come back into a doctor in a couple of days if he didn’t start bearing weight on it. We decided to head out to the Connaught Fair for the afternoon. We had a stroller for Boone and we figured if his leg was broken we would be watching plenty of TV in the coming weeks and that we should take advantage of having an event to attend.

Monday morning Boone still wasn’t bearing weight, so we decided to head in to the city that night so that we could see a doctor Tuesday morning. We wanted to wait the full two days to ensure that if there was a break, it did show up. We spent lots of time Sunday and Monday watching Cars and Mater Tales. It was tremendously helpful that both Hugh and I were off work. Having two kids that don’t walk is a lot of work, particularly when one is as big as Boone! It did help that near the end of Monday, Boone started to crawl a bit. It was definitely out of boredom. Strangely, that day when asked to tell us what hurt he would point to his ankle and foot (Sunday he pointed to the bump on his shin). We could rotate his ankle without giving him any sort of discomfort, so we were really perplexed as to why he wasn’t walking on it.

On Tuesday morning we went into Pedicatrics Emergency at University Hospital. I am not a fan of going to emerge unless there is no other option, but we couldn’t get in to see our family doctor that morning and we didn’t want to lug Boone around to a bunch of different places (to see a doctor, to get x-rays, and to potentually have a cast put on). Boone wasn’t complaining much, but it was VERY clear he was in pain.  He wasn’t walking and if we bumped into his leg he would immediately start crying. We arrived at the hospital at 8 am and were out shortly after 9 am. We were fortunate to be the first people of the day to Pediatrics Emerge and saw a doctor, had x-rays and saw a doctor a second time all in just over an hour.

The bad news was that Boone had indeed broken his leg. The doctor could actually see it on his original x-rays from Tisdale, but took a few at a different angle to confirm. The upside to the break was that it was a Toddler’s break. It is located near the bottom of Boone’s tibia and is s-shaped. The treatment for this break does not involve a cast. In fact, it doesn’t involve anything at all. The doctor told us that within a week to ten days Boone would start walking on it. He told us just to let Boone take the lead. If he wants to walk, let him. If he doesn’t want to walk, don’t make him.

On the Wednesday following the injury, Boone took a few steps and on Thursday he started doing quite a bit of walking. It is quite funny to see a toddler limp! It seriously looks like he has a peg leg! Every day he got a bit better and a bit more mobile, but I think that he may have gotten a bit carried away playing on Saturday, because on Sunday his limp got worse, he wanted to be carried more and started to complain of pain. We tried to get him to slow down the next couple of days, but watching TV, reading books, coloring, and playdoh can only occupy so much time in our active boy’s day.

Three weeks after breaking his tibia Boone was walking with a limp that was barely noticeable. This last approximately 48 hours before he tripped on a rope in the boat and tweeked it this past Wednesday. Thursday we were back to carrying him around because he was in too much pain, but by Friday he was limping around again. Looks like this might take a bit more patience to get itself healed! Boone isn't going to know what hit him when his leg is 100% better and the amount of screen time he gets is considerably less! LOL

During my reading on breaks, I learned that a person breaks an average of two bones in their lifetime. Hugh pulls the average up, having broken his nose so many times he can't count, I am right at the average (skull and finger). I am hoping for Boone that this is his only break, but knowing the kind of kid he is, he will likely be his dad - pulling the average up!