Broken Leg

Today has brought me back down to earth with a thud! Just as we were on a high from our overnight trip away to see Pink, today reminds me that life with a child with a disability is anything but normal. Sometimes I start to think that life is just normal as everything seems to be going along well. Then something happens like this morning. I rolled Noah over at about 4 am like I usually do as he was waking up. This usually means he is getting uncomfortable and once you roll him he settles back down to sleep. I rolled him over and he even gave me a little smile as I rubbed his head.

Then at 6.45 am he woke up again - absolutely screaming like he was in major pain. I quickly jumped up to him and rubbed his chest hoping it was just something like and that he would stop. Sometimes when he wakes up he is a little bit stiff and has a bit of a complain until you rub his body and he loosens up. This was a different kind of a scream though - one where I knew he was in lots of pain. I picked him up and put him in bed with me and he fell back to sleep while I was cuddling him. Then at about 7.45 he woke again and started crying straight away. I got him up and we stripped him off trying to work out what it was. Straight away I saw that his left knee was swollen. I knew straight away that we needed to take him up to the hospital to get it checked out.

Five hours later he is back home, laying on the couch, with a full leg cast on. His leg is actually broken! :(

The Dr sent us off for an X-ray and after the first one was done I heard the radiographer looking at the film say to the one setting up for the next shot to get a 'lot of the femur in the next one'. The other radiographer went back to check out why and then went 'oh no'. I asked him what was wrong and he said it was fractured. I felt awful as I had no clue how it happened or when. Kids with cerebral palsy often have fragile bones, so anything could have caused it - Kobe falling on top of him, knocking it into something or just picking him up. I am now wondering whether it happened when we put him to bed or when I rolled him over during the night as he seemed fine all yesterday.

He has to have the cast on for 4 weeks and has to go back to the fracture clinic this week to get it checked out. I have a feeling we may be back before then to get it re-plastered as I think it's going to cause a lot of pressure marks up high on his leg as it's already rubbing in. It will be worse if he has to sit up in his wheelchair as it really cuts into his leg

He was in a lot of pain when they put the cast on and screamed down A&E. Poor Angela Vinen was actually in there also and was in an isolation room with a mask on as she has the flu. She heard Noah screaming and I looked in and she was crying as she felt sorry for him. I felt bad for her. I was actually a bit anxious being in there with how many very sick people were coming in with the flu. They all had to put masks on. The boys thought it was pretty cool though that I grabbed a couple of masks for them on the way out! Jalen now thinks he really is like Michael Jackson!