More hospital fun

Well, OK, not that fun! It was kind of a rough night. Josh had a really hard time sleeping, so we were up for a good part of the night. He watched a movie at 3am and I think we all got a little sleep after that.

The surgery was at 8am, and it went well. Josh did well with the anethesia (My biggest worry) and everything went smoothly. The doctor showed us the x-rays of the break and we got a better idea of how it happened. Josh inherited a weird family trait from me. Our elbows hyperextend. We can bend our elbows at a weird angle and it always freaks people out. Josh inherited it, but Matthew didn't.

We've always looked at it as a funny genetic trick that we inherited, but apparently people with elbows that hyperextend are much more likely to break their elbows. The doctor said that his best guess is that when Josh fell he put his arm out to catch himself, his elbow hyperextended and bent backwards, which snapped it. Ouch.

The break was at the very top of his elbow and the doctor was concerned because of the growth plates there. If it doesn't heal correctly he risks his arm not growing right. So in the surgery they lined the bone back up and put pins in it to secure it while it heals. He gave us x-ray photos of the his arm with the pins in it and it's kind of cool in an icky sort of way, lol.

He arm is all wrapped up from shoulder to fingers in a big soft cast. They can't put a regular hard cast on it yet because his elbow is likely to swell for the next few days and they need to allow it to swell and go back to normal. On Friday we're going to go back to the surgeons office and he'll take the soft cast off and put a regular fiberglass cast on it that he'll have to wear for the next month or so. After that they'll take it off, take the pins out and he'll probably have to do a little physical therapy on it to make sure that he gets his range of motion back.

The doctor said that he can't go back to school until they put the hard cast on it, so he's going to spend his second full week of school at home. Not a great start to the school year! We'll stay home and watch lots of movies.

Anyway, all in all I guess things could have been worse, so I'm glad that it all went well. We're at a great hospital with great doctors and nurses and he's been well taken care of.

He's resting now and once they decide that he's alert and doing OK they'll probably let him go home. He's still a little groggy from the medication and still in some pain, but he's doing OK.

So there's the update on our very eventful day. Hopefully things will be less eventful after this! :)