Ryan's Broken Finger(s)

Unfortunately Ryan broke one (probably two) of his fingers last weekend. It happened a few hours after his last baseball practice of the season. (hey, convenient timing!)  Lucas said or did something that made him angry, and he took a swing at him. Now, I don't seriously think he was trying to make contact, but rather just intimidate him. But he swung so wildly that he accidentally punched the edge of the kitchen counter instead. I was in the other room and I heard the thud followed by Ryan's screaming and howling. I immediately knew he was in serious pain. I can tell the difference between an "I'm crying a lot to get attention for my minor injury" cry vs "This really really really hurts" cry. Unfortunately it was the latter.

I got Ryan some ice and after a little while his knuckles looked like this. Some bruising and swelling.

I also noticed that his ring finger knuckle seemed pushed down. It's a little hard to tell, but when he tried to hold his hand flat, I could feel all his knuckle bones except for the ring finger. We watched his hand over the weekend and then called the doctor on Monday.

After a video visit, the doctor sent us in for an x-ray on Monday. Afterwards, they put Ryan's hand in a splint and told us to keep it on until we heard the results.

At this point I was feeling bad for Ryan, but at the same time fully ready for him to experience the natural consequences of his actions.

That afternoon we heard back from the doctor that the bone right below Ryan's right ring finger knuckle was in fact fractured. Unfortunately, the soonest they could schedule the next appointment was Friday. And it wasn't even an in-person visit! Our video visit on Friday was quick. Ryan's hand was even more swollen, and the doctor confirmed that his assistant would call us to schedule an appointment to get his cast put on. When she called and said the soonest appointment was not until the following Tuesday, I did complain a bit. It had already been a week since Ryan broke his finger! The little bit of pushback worked.....they called me right back and told me we could come in immediately to get the cast put on that afternoon.

First the doctor showed us Ryan's x-rays, and when he left the room I obviously took some pictures!

He casually mentioned that "his pinky finger is also probably broken, but I don't really care about that one". Then came the bad news. Ryan's hand would heal just fine, but first his knuckle bone needed to be manually popped back into place. He offered Ryan a numbing shot before doing this, but Ryan declined.

We waited 45 minutes for the doctor to call us back in for the procedure, and Ryan second-guessed his decision. He was pretty nervous, but I assured him it would be really quick and then the pain would be over. Again, it's hard to tell but you can kind of see that he's missing his ring finger knuckle bone.

The procedure to pop his knuckle back into place was not actually quick! I figured it would be a quick pop! and then done. However, it was more like a really long 30 seconds. Ryan was in agony, squeezing my hand and crying and begging the doctor to stop. Oh it was so hard to watch him go through that. Once it was over, they quickly put his hand under a live x-ray machine to confirm it had worked. Thankfully it had!

With that part behind us, we finally got the cast put on. Ryan chose dark blue (without glitter!). The guy who put on the cast had a really funny sense of humor and told us some wild stories that confirmed things can in fact always be worse. (He recently had a boy come in with 2 broken arms and 1 broken leg from dirt-biking. Officially crossing that off the list of things my boys are allowed to do)

Once the cast was on but still soft, the doctor applied pressure to the spot below Ryan's knuckle, in order for the cast to harden with that part pushing in on his finger. I could tell this was incredibly painful for Ryan. There is a big finger indent in his cast now. When it was all over they told Ryan he was a pretty tough kid. I guess most kids opt for the numbing shot. I remember when he was 3 years old in the hospital with a skull fracture, and the nurses would comment about how strong he was, and how well he handled pain. But then the minute they left the room his stoic face would crumble and he would fall apart in my arms.

We received the good news that Ryan only needs to wear his cast for 4 weeks! Ryan got In-N-Out for dinner, some motrin, and a couple nights spent sleeping near Mom and Dad. He is complaining a lot about the inside of his cast being really uncomfortable (he's extremely sensitive to tags and things like that on his clothing), so we're trying our best to keep him comfortable and give him some extra attention.  I hope the next month goes by quickly for him.