Dawson Breaks His Arm

On Saturday, November 16th Dawson decided to try and climb out of his crib after his nap and fell out in the process.  We can only assume that he was trying to brace himself for the fall and landed hard on his hand.  I ran upstairs (with my brother who was over at our house) after hearing a very loud thump to a very scared and crying Dawson.  We tried to check him out but he was more interested in snuggling than being looked over.

A few hours after it happened, I noticed that Dawson was fussier than usual and refusing to use his left hand at all so I decided to take him into Instacare (1st mistake).  We waited for 2+ hours to get an X-ray of his arm/hand and were told that it was broken but that we would need to see an orthopedic specialist on Monday.  The doctor at Instacare recommended someone, the nurses recommended someone different, and we were told that they would contact us on Monday to set something up.  Meanwhile, we were given a soft brace to put on Dawson's arm.

Scott came straight from the duck club to Instacare.  Dawson was so happy to have Daddy there! (Gramma came with us to Instacare too while Grampa watched Bridger!)

On Monday afternoon I hadn't heard from the specialist and so I called to try and get in.  I was told that the doctor didn't even see patients on Monday and that the earliest we could get Dawson in was Tuesday.  I scheduled the appointment and hung up.

After talking to a couple of friends, it was recommended to me that we see an orthopedic specialist up at Primary Children's Medical Center.  I thought about it a lot and decided that I would be more comfortable having someone look at his X-rays who deals with children on a daily basis.  We called our doctor to get a recommendation for Primary's (jumping through insurance hoops) and she was able to get us in for an appointment on Wednesday.  We cancelled the Tuesday appointment.

We had an awesome experience at Primary Children's.  Lesson learned…just take them there first!  Dawson screamed through the entire process but they were so good with him…and FAST!  (Which made all the difference!)  The specialist said Dawson had a buckle fracture on the radius and ulna of his left arm and would need to wear a cast for only 2 weeks.  We were thrilled to hear this since Dawson had already become a pro at removing his soft cast and we were concerned about how well he would do with the hard cast.  Gratefully babies heal superhuman fast!

Dawson was completely unsure about his cast and quickly decided that it was too difficult to crawl around with.  So, what did he do?  He took up walking in about 10 minutes.

He did great with his cast on over the 2 weeks!  It didn't seem to slow him down a bit!

Dawson is a daddy's boy!  Daddy certainly doesn't complain about all of the extra cuddles.

Yesterday-right before we left to go have his cast taken off!

 Yesterday we went up and had follow-up X-rays and his cast removed.  He screamed through the X-rays again and was unsure about them sawing his cast off at first but quickly decided the vibration tickled more than it hurt.  He is loving having that hand free again…especially because he could do a full two-armed splash instead of an ineffective one-armer at bath time.

After the follow-up X-rays, right before they removed his cast.

Also, it seems that his decision to walk was short-lived as now, with his cast removed, he has gone back to crawling full time.  Won't take a single step.  That boy certainly has a mind of his own!