Poor Brenton

Well, we have had a couple of exciting days here at the Swainston home. Sunday night (around 8:00 PM) Brenton stepped on his toy train, fell backwards, and caught himself with his left arm. He really cried really hard for a couple of minutes, but then went back to playing with his toys. He would grip toys just fine, but we did notice that he wouldn't put weight on his left arm. Every once in a while, he'd hit his arm on something, or forget and lean on it. When he did this he would kind of whine and say, "owe". We tried to look at it close, and we pressed on it up and down to see if we could tell if anything was broken. We didn't notice anything weird, but he wouldn't let us touch it for more than a couple of seconds. It wasn't swelling or bruising, but he definitely didn't want to play hard with it. He was ready for bed by this time, and we were having a hard time deciding if he was hurt, or just grumpy because he was tired. Brenton has an unusually high tolerance for pain. At least that's my opinion. Here's a story example:

A couple of days ago Brenton stubbed his toe. He said, "Mommy, owee toe." I said, "you hurt your toe?" he said, "Yes." That was the end of the conversation. I didn't even look at his toe because he didn't say anything else. When Kale got home from work, he said, "Wow! What happened to Brenton's toe?" I then looked and it was covered in dry blood, and the toenail was split down the middle.

Anyway, after much deliberation and conversation, I decided to take him to the ER at 8:45 PM on Sunday. I asked Kale if I was being paranoid, and he said, "Yes, but that's okay." After about 30-45 minutes at the ER, the Doctor told me that his arm was indeed broken. It is actually just a "buckle fracture", http://orthopedics.about.com/cs/pediatricsurgery/g/torus.htm so not severe, but it does require a cast for 3-4 weeks. The ER splinted the arm, and we had to see his pediatrician the next day to get it casted. When I called and told Kale it was broken, he said, "No way!" Ha. I'm not usually right, but this time I was. Not that I was happy to be right this time.

So the next morning, I called and got an appointment for Brenton at 1:00 PM. Kale took work off and we took Alex to a babysitter. We then headed to Coeur 'D Alene for Brenton's appointment.

All went well with the casting, until about 5 minutes after we left the Doctor's office. The Doctor called us on our cell phone, and asked us which arm Brenton had broke. According to the x-rays and the file, we just casted the wrong arm! She was correct. Don't ask how ALL of us (Kale, me, the nurse, and the Doctor) all missed that one. Wow! What a stupid thing to not notice. So, we headed back to the office to have the correct arm casted.

After putting a cast on the correct arm, they then had to saw off the other cast. It started okay, but then went bad. Brenton started screaming, yelling and trying to pull away. It took Kale, me and the nurse to hold him down so the Doctor could remove the cast. After the cast was removed, we saw a couple of small burns on his hand from the saw. The Doctor didn't seem too surprised by it. (When a cast hasn't had the full amount of time to set up, it's harder to remove because you can't crack it. You have to saw completely through it.) Anyway, the Doctor put some ointment on it, and a band aid, and we left. Brenton soon started to cry holding his burnt hand. He cried so hard and much, that we stopped at the store and bought some Neosporin with pain relief (the best stuff ever!) and an ice pack. We put that on, re-bandaged it, and headed home. He did fall asleep in the car, but as soon as we were home and he woke up, he was in pain! Not from the broken arm, but from the burn.

After giving him both IB Profrin and Tylenol, I finally talked him into letting me remove the band aids and put more ointment on with a loose gauze wrap covering it. As soon as that was done, he was MUCH happier. He was able to play for a while before it was time for bed. He slept most of the night.

Today, the burn is a huge nasty blister. It's about an inch long, and 1/4 inch tall. I've never seen a blister so tall! There is so much fluid in it. So far, we've kept it wrapped, applying new ointment and bandages two times a day. We now have some prescription burn ointment to put on it, so hopefully that will help keep it from scarring. As for the pain, he hasn't really complained about it again.

He has asked us a few of times to take the cast off. We just tell him it has to stay on for a long time to help his BIG owee heal. Usually he responds with a dramatic, "Ohhhhh, yeahhhhh."

The pictures above were taken with our cell phone. I know they're not very good, but I have something to document how unobservant Kale and I both were.

The moral of the story is, when your child is getting a cast put on, or any procedure for that matter, make sure it's being done on the proper body part.

PS As for the pediatrician, we still love her. She's been a great doctor to both of our boys, and hey, if both of us can miss something like that, we can easily see how she could, also.