our emergency room adventure.

Two and a half weeks ago at our church picnic, Joshua took a hit from a soccer ball to his left hand really hard, causing an extreme amount of pain.  Our nurse practitioner friend was there, thought it was a sprain and told us what to do, and so we iced, elevated, gave ibuprofen, and he rested it.  

A couple weeks later, Joshua's wrist was still somewhat tender but he was again able to write, eat and do most of the things he normally would do with his hand. It seemed that the sprain was healing nicely.

Wednesday night after youth group,  Joshua and some other kids were playing soccer.  He fell, catching himself with his outstretched left hand. He heard a popping sound and came running to the van in a *lot* of pain. So we started to head home, until he realized his wrist was deformed. 

We turned around and pulled in to the urgent care center, next to our church. But they had just closed, 20 minutes earlier!  We came back to church to get some ice, and after a quick online search realized all the urgent care offices were closed for the night.  So we decided to take him to the children's hospital ER in Phoenix.

The ER was really busy, full of lots of sick, miserable children all around us.  Joshua was called back for x-rays pretty soon after we got there, so we had hopes it might mean he'd be seen soon.  

Waiting in the x-ray room.

The inside of his wrist.

But it was 3 1/2 hours of waiting before they had an available room. All this with pain Joshua rated as a 9 out of 10!  He handled the pain amazingly well, but that was a really long time to wait.

This was about 3 hours after we got there.

Finally, someone called out the magical words we'd been waiting to hear: Joshua's name!  A room was available, and now Joshua would be able to get some help.  :)

Yay! A room was open at last!!

Once the doctors saw the x-ray images, things started to happen. 

You can see the fracture in his radius bone, by the thumb. (It's called a left distal radius fracture.)  He also has a tiny little break at the top of the ulna.

And this is the x-ray that showed why his wrist was deformed. Ouch!!

The doctors saw healing from a previous break when they looked at the x-rays, so apparently his "sprain" was actually a fracture!  They said it was healing fine. Just wasn't ready to handle the force of a fall yet.

Joshua had to have an IV started because they were going to give him two fast-acting drugs to make him sleep and not feel anything when they realigned his radius bone. The doctor said sometimes the medications slow respiration enough that they have to "bag" or intubate the patient to get them breathing again. (Yikes!)  So he had to be moved to a different room where they had everything they needed, just in case.

Squinting in the bright lights of the procedure room.

They sent us to a room next to the procedure room after they assembled the team they needed.

Right after they realigned the bone.  He was feeling a little weird from the meds still.

They were able to get the bone aligned, with a 5-10% angle instead of the 40% it was before. They said with his age, that was good and it would heal well.  Apparently he did stop breathing and they had to bag him to get him breathing again. (!!) Scary to hear that our son had stopped breathing, even for just a little bit. 

Fitted with the sling & ready to go home.

They got him splinted up and in a sling for the first 5-7 days, and once the bit of grogginess wore off, we took him home. It was 3:00 am when we left!

We were all really tired but so glad he was in less pain & ready to go home. :)

We were all hungry, but unsure if anything would be open at that hour to get a quick bite at a drive-through. So we stopped for gas and Matt got us some chocolate glazed donuts. Those things tasted *so* good!  I'm sure it was because we were all so tired and hungry. :)