Our first broken bone

Last night (September 26) Noah fell off the top bunk and broke his arm. I had just set the bunk beds up on Tuesday (we had previously had them set up as 2 separate twin beds) to give the boys more room to play in their room. We had put them to bed but could hear them upstairs goofing off. The day before Noah fell off the bunk because he was goofing off and hurt his head so we weren't surprised when we heard a loud thud and immediate crying. Aaron headed upstairs first and I followed. As soon as Aaron walked in the room he mentioned something about the arm looking broken. Once I got in and saw his arm, bent where it shouldn't be bent and his hand looking very limp, I immediately went into action. I wrapped a towel around it and put some ice on it and Aaron made a makeshift splint out of a toy handle and 2 neck ties. Then I headed to the ER. I'm not sure what time it even was, probably around 10pm when we got there.

Noah fell asleep as soon as he hit the bed in the ER. He was so exhausted from crying and his arm hurt so bad. He slept for about 35 minutes and then woke up in a lot of pain. The nurse had come in to give him motrin while he slept but I didn't want to wake him. We went ahead and gave the motrin but it didn't help. The doctor finally ordered an IV and some morphine. The nurses were pulling out all their tricks because he was crying so much. He got 3 different toys which helped for about 10 seconds. During the IV the nurse put a little vibrating ladybug thing on his arm to distract from the needle. She also sprayed really cold numbing spray on his hand. The only thing that worked was he got to squirt her with a syringe of saline after the IV was in and he got it up her sleeve on her armpit. It was the first smile we saw all night. The morphine kicked in really quick and he started smiling and talking and making jokes. He asked about the bed rail and I said something about how we needed it up because we wouldn't want him to fall out of the bed again. He chuckled at that.

As soon as the IV was in and morphine was given x-ray finally showed up. I have no idea how they would have taken those x-rays without the morphine. They had to move his arm so much and just 10 minutes earlier you couldn't even touch him. The x-ray showed that he broke his radius and fractured his ulna.

Once we got back to the room the nurses and doctors started prepping everything to set his arm. They had to sedate him for the procedure. They said I could stay in the room or not. I decided to stay but didn't realize how traumatizing it would be. They had a pole with a bunch of gauze strips hanging off of it. They took his index and middle finger and hooked them in the gauze to suspend his arm in the air. They then hung weights from his elbow and began to manipulate his arm, pushing and pulling to get the bone in place. He was crying out even though he was sedated so they kept having to give him more of the medication. I couldn't handle him crying out in pain and had to leave the room. I just sat in the hall outside the room and cried. I came back in as they were putting the cast on. Once they had it wrapped they had to mold it to his arm by squeezing it really hard to get a good fit. He started crying again. They gave him one last dose of ketamine which knocked him out pretty good. He slept for a good hour after they were done and we eventually had to wake him up some so they could discharge us. We got home around 3am.

He's been doing pretty well today but is a little uncomfortable. He can't move his fingers much because it hurts when he does. His fingers are also a little swollen. He keeps asking when his arm will be better. He'll be in a full arm cast for about 4 weeks and then will get a half arm cast for probably another 2 weeks.

I was getting the kids all juice this morning and Noah wanted to use the blue lid on the blue cup (only problem is the blue lid actually goes with Eli's cup). Noah asked Eli if he could use the blue lid and Eli just nodded his head yes. "Because Noah broke his bone so he can use the blue lid, that's why!" Noah smiled and gave him a 1 armed hug. It was so sweet!