Dear Easter Bunny

Broken Child

[Mostly written by Carol]

Audrey was playing at a friends house the other day after school. They were climbing around on some rocks in the backyard. Audrey says there was a spider and she intentionally jumped back off the rock onto the ground but had a little too much momentum so she fell back and caught herself with her left hand. The Dad called me and said she was crying a little and wanted to go home. You couldn't see anything wrong, but she rarely cries over an injury and the way she was holding it I felt it warranted an X-ray. Before heading to the ER I swung by home and had John take a look. Since the location of pain Audrey was pointing at was not at a joint (thus probably not a sprain) he agreed we should probably have it looked at.

As Audrey and I waited at the ER she was moving it more and more and I began to think that maybe it was fine. Audrey was sure she had sprained it. But shortly thereafter the X-ray showed she had a "buckled distal radius". It is a very common injury in kids. The bone above the wrist is still soft and often will bend or compress (buckle) instead of fracture fully. It is an injury that heals quickly without complications. It is not in a growth plate area which is good.

Audrey is in good spirits. She has a little discomfort but not a lot. She wasn't interested in taking Tylenol at the hospital so you know it wasn't too horrible for her.

Audrey left the ER with a splint and advice to see an orthopedist the next day. The orthopedist said if she were older they would just leave it splinted but with younger, more active kids they use a cast so the patient can move around more freely. He says Audrey can do all sports and activities except swimming.

The cast will come off in three weeks when they will take another X-ray. She may have a Velcro splint for another week after that if needed.

Audrey is very happy it was her left hand and not her right. It will make school work so much easier. And she was excited to get the choose the color of her cast.

Unfortunately, this happened two days before the end-of-session ice show in which Audrey was very excited to perform. I'm writing this a few hours before the show and Audrey has decided she doesn't even want to watch. But she's likely to continue taking year-round figure skating lessons so there's always next year.

Diggin' Out

We had a weird snow storm over the past 36 hours. The center of the storm is parked 500 miles away in the Atlantic but the ends of its arms delivered plenty of snow to parts of New England. Local meteorologists found it hard to forecast because they knew different parts of the region would get very different accumulations. We got about 8 inches or so.

We got a robocall at 6:30 saying school would be two hours late. Then at 7:30 they cancelled it. The girls were very excited.

Click on the picture to see a time-lapse video of me doing the snow clearing chore. It's not so bad with a machine!