Baby's first x-raysBaby's first x-rays

Is anyone really surprised by this photo?

I for one am not.  What does surprise me, however, is in the manner in which it happened.

Let me start from the beginning of yesterday’s saga…

Jett and I picked Jude up from preschool.  Jett always loves to run back to the preschool room to play with the toys in there – and let me just say, he never does it with my permission.  It’s a little bit of a zoo when the kids get dismissed.  There are 20+ kids, parents and siblings in the foyer all trying to find each other, get packed up and leave.  I usually help Jude put his craft, and/or papers into his backpack.  Jett takes any second of an opportunity to RUN for the toys.  And once I catch up with him, it’s a bit of a production getting him away from the toys and into our car.

Yesterday, I told Jett he had to stay by my side.  I held his hand and kept him close to me despite his trying to break my hold.  I let one of the preschool helpers put Jude’s things in his backpack while Jett remained  firm in my grasp.

Jett had begun crying as soon as he knew I was serious about him minding me and not running into the classroom.  Except, he didn’t stop crying.  I assured him we could play with toys as soon as we got home.

He cried the whole car ride home – granted, it’s a short trip, but something seemed wrong.  He wailed when I took him out of his car seat.  He was asking for a band-aid and he said something about his hand.  I noticed he was not moving his hand and kept it close to his body.  I couldn’t physically see anything that would indicate a problem.  Nothing happened that would have caused me to worry about him getting hurt.  I didn’t know what to do.  He bawled and bawled and his whole body tensed up when I repositioned him.

After we’d been home for about 5 minutes, I decided to call the pediatrician’s office to see what they had to say.  They couldn’t get him in for x-rays until later that afternoon and suggested I take him to the walk-in clinic in West Des Moines.  I called Josh and had him meet us there.

I was completely perplexed.  The only thing that could have injured him was when he was trying to break away from me at preschool.  At least once, Jett dropped to the ground (a tactic both of my kids have used) to break my hold when I won’t let go of them.  I believe I was holding his right hand when that happened, so I guessed that maybe when he dropped he fell on his left hand.

We had x-rays taken and each time we held his wrist and elbow to take the picture, he cried out in pain.  I didn’t notice any redness or swelling still but obviously he was in a lot of pain.

The doctor didn’t notice any fractures in his hand from the x-ray and couldn’t see any fractures in his elbow, but there was some fluid around the elbow area and he said that some fractures can be hidden.  He would have the radiologist double-check and call us back.

He gave us a sling to keep Jett’s arm in, and I was surprised that he actually kept it on and didn’t play or fidget with it.  He kept it very still.

When we got back home, I gave Jett Tylenol and then he voluntarily walked to his room for a nap and took a good, long snooze.

When he woke up, he continued to not use his arm.  He cried out the few times he’d inadvertently leaned against his arm.  I gave him Motrin (this is what the doctor recommended – I didn’t think we had any left at the time I gave him Tylenol, but then I found a bottle).

And then by about 6:30 last night, he’d pulled off the sling, was doing one handed push-ups with his "injured" arm, was arm-wrestling Jude with his "injured" arm, doing bicep curls with his "injured" arm – (not really) but he was basically acting like nothing was or ever had been wrong with it.

But this is no joke – we went outside last night to have a snack before bed and he did pick up a large, 5 lb. rock with his "injured" hand.  I don’t know.  If we thought he had the mental capacity for faking the whole thing, that’s what my money would have been on – his recovery was that fast and miraculous.

And then the doctor’s office called around 7:30 p.m. and said the radiologist found no fractures, confirming what the other doctor had told us.  Made sense, he was pretty much over it.

I’ll tell you what, after witnessing some of the more dare-devilish stunts these kids have pulled in this house, I can’t believe we had to seek medical attention after suffering an injury that I had to have witnessed, yet never noticed.  Weird.