Fractured

Last night shortly before bedtime, Josiah went to take a high-speed lap around our downstairs — a frequent event. But without shoes or slippers covering his socks just at that moment, he slipped and crashed as he rounded the bend in the dining room. It was immediately obvious that he was really hurt. His tolerance for pain is unbelievable (far surpasses mine, seriously), which makes it easy to disambiguate the superficial injuries from the real ones. Anyway, this happened at 8 p.m., and amid sobs and occasional shrieks of pain, off we headed to the emergency room. Two rounds of x-rays, several physical exams, and a temporary splint and sling arrangement later, we were finally home. Not a fun night for anyone, but he was wonderfully brave through most of it, and he's doing fantastically today (even on a grossly truncated night of sleep). I am SO thankful it happened with Jesse here. Of course, I keep cycling through dozens of small changes to last evening that would have meant he wasn't running in socks just then (I'm a mom; I have a hard-core guilt problem), but I suppose the bright side is that he's ridiculously cute in his tiny Snoopy sling. I can already hear the girls at the senior year retrospective slide show going, "Aaaawwww!" when these pics come up (okay, so I also have a hard-core planning-and-living-ahead-of-myself problem).  :)

As for specifics: Tomorrow we have to find an orthopedic specialist to evaluate things. The ER doc said the fracture was clean and the bone is still aligned, so Josiah may be able to heal simply with this bandaged splint and sling arrangement. Alternatively, he may need a proper cast; the orthopedist will make that call. The break is in his left humorous, the upper bone that runs from elbow to shoulder, with the site very close to the elbow. His splint and bandaging go from armpit to fingers, so I'm going through Josiah's shirt drawer trying to choose a few sacrificial candidates for sleeve-hacking. I imagine he'll be wearing the cruddiest old things for the coming weeks since I hate to chop up good clothes!