Bryce was having a great bike ride with his family, when all of a sudden a quick down and up part of the trail led to a sharp turn which he had too much momentum to complete. His bike slid off the path, and he tumbled down about eight to ten feet toward the creek below. He was complaining of some pain in his left wrist and couldn't ride home. The bike riding crew helped him home and got him situated on the couch where he would ice his wrist and watch a Star Wars movie while Joy went to her work meeting that she was leading. Brett came home from work and Bryce told the story and concluded it with, "Mom, already looked at my wrist and it's fine." So Brett, noticing that everything seemed fine, joined in watching the movie and enjoyed dinner. After completing her meeting, Joy came back out and checked in on Bryce, re-examined his arm, and had a worried look on her face which brought Bryce to start complaining that his arm hurt again. So it was off to the ER at 9pm, just an hour and a half after Brett had left the hospital. He had called ahead and let them know he was coming which seemed to help get them seen, but then they waited 2+ hours to get the xray that was ordered. Of course, the fact that Bryce rated his pain as 3/10, really didn't help our cause for any kind of expedited service. At about 130am, the ortho tech shows up to put him in a cast. After that was completed, while we were waiting to check-out, the nurse came by to put an IV in to give him morphine...after the cast and the mild reduction by the tech. Brett politely refused and just wanted to get home, having been awake for 21 hours at this point. He realized he wasn't young and stupid like he may have been in residency when pulling that sort of thing was a little too common, he knew it wouldn't be safe for his patients or himself if he went back to work on 2-3 hours of sleep.
Thus, the story began. We would make two trips to the orthopedic surgeon. The first one a bit scarier than the second because they said that this was an unusual fracture and would require a full arm cast placed in the supinated position. Bryce said, "I guess I am permanently holding a hologram or carrying a plate." The fracture and cast would disqualify him from the remainder of his soccer season. The second orthopedic visit was met with good news of complete healing of the fracture at 5 weeks and the cast was removed and he was given a brace to wear while he began rehabbing the wrist, hand, and elbow that had gotten quite stiff while immobilized. He is continuing to recover and has a new appreciation for how much he relies on having his left hand to help out with a great many tasks that he may have taken for granted before.
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| The cast is removed: "Am I free of the carbonite?" |
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| Sometimes he would wear the sling to help with the weight of the cast. |
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| Mostly believing the cast saw wasn't going to cut into his skin. |
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| Home the next morning after the ER put the temporary cast on. |
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| Can I help you? I have my palm up for a while now. |
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| Coming home with just the wrist guard on, that was a nice change from the full cast. |
