Saturday, May 23, 2009

What happened and how it ended up

If you read the last post, you are probably wondering what happened. You are also probably thinking of horrible scenes and ways in which Ethan could have broken his leg. Well, folks, I never would have believed that something so simple could have had such traumatic results.

Tuesday night, Abbey spilled some water. She got a towel to wipe it up and Ethan wanted to help her. He put his foot down on the towel to push down on it at the same time she pulled it away to wipe. I guess that his leg was twisted and with the pulling motion, the femur broke. Not a straight across break, but a long slanted break. He fell in the floor screaming. When we picked him up and started to check him out, the only visible problem seemed to be a strained, swollen knee. However, he kept crying, so we decided to go ahead and go to the ER and "just get it checked out to be safe". And, as you already know, it was broken.

We spent the first night with Rip and Snort. Wednesday morning, the doctor decided that pins would be better than a half body cast. (It is dreadfully hot in Taiwan right now.) So, into surgery for four pins and into the hospital for four days. Blessings be to the God of heaven that we were able to get a private room. Poor Ethan was in quite a bit of pain that first day. They were giving him morphine into his IV. He has an interesting metal contraction on the outside of his leg holding the ends of the pins. In a month, they will remove the pins. Just a little something wonderful to look forward to.

I will say that the medical staff at the hospital is excellent at handling children. They tried to get the IV and when the normal nurse could not get it, they called a special nurse that got it first try. When it was time for him to go into surgery, he started to cry about leaving us and being moved to a different bed, so they went ahead and put him to sleep there with us and then transferred him to OR table. Throughout the ordeal, they were gentle and considerate.

We are now back home and homebound for a while. Ethan is doing really good and just taking a little Children's Tylenol (Panadol for my Taiwan readers!) a few times a day for pain management. But please keep praying for him. It is hard to be unable to run and play when you are three.

4 comments:

Cylinda Nickel said...

Praying for ALL of you- What a traumatic thing for a little one!

Vicki said...

Wow, what an ordeal! I am praying for you all!

Love and prayers going your way!

Girly Muse said...

I found your blog through Cylinda. Praying for Ethan. Enjoying your writing. :)

Tiffany Bracken: said...

Thank you everyone for your prayers and comments. It is wonderful to know that we aren't alone in this!