Dillon's Broken Arm

Dillon fell off the trampoline at Grandma and Grandfather's house and broke his arm last Friday. Cameron and I were both at work when it happened so we got the dreadful phone call with the terrible news. Dillon was taken to an Instacare about 5 minutes from their house. I left work right away, but I was still about 45 minutes away. Cameron was only about 15 minutes away so he was able to get to the Instacare to be with Dillon pretty quick. The Instacare took x-rays to determine how bad the break was. I am so grateful that Cameron was there with Dillon for the x-rays. As anyone can imagine Dillon was in a great deal of pain, but in order to take the x-rays Cameron had to straighten and hold down Dillon's arm. I am not sure I could have handled that myself. The x-rays did show the extent of the break and we were told there was nothing the Instacare could do for us and that we needed to go to Primary Children's Hospital to meet with an orthopedic surgeon.

So Dillon's accident happened about 3:30 and we got to Primary's about 6pm. Dillon was going through spurts of being calm and talking to us pretty normal to moments of intense pain. We got checked in and taken to a room pretty quick. An orthopedic surgeon was already on the floor so he came to see Dillon within the hour. The surgeon explained that because of the extent and placement of the break the only option was surgery. After we met with the surgeon and another pediatric doctor, Dillon was finally given some medicine for the pain. He had to get an IV in his hand which did not make him very happy, but he was not allowed to eat or drink anything so we explained that his body needed water and the tube would give him a drink. The pain meds helped him relax quite a bit but even though Dillon was exhausted he would not let himself fall asleep. Instead he got to pick a stuffed animal to hold on to. We got to watch movies, play with dinosaurs and a family specialist came in and talked to Dillon about the surgery. He was allowed to smell and pick out a scent to put in the mask during his surgery.

Finally about 10pm, they were ready for Dillon's surgery. We met the surgeon and he explained the surgery again. One thing the surgeon said that I thought was interesting was, that if he had broken his arm to the same extent as Dillon he would no longer be a surgeon, but because Dillon is young he will have no problem recovering and that this break is very common. He was so nice and we were comfortable leaving Dillon in his hands. The anaesthesiologist came over and also talked to us. He handed Dillon his ipod with games to play and I think Dillon completely forgot we were leaving him for surgery. The surgery went well of course and the surgeon came and talked to us about what he did. Dillon has 3 pins in his arm and stitches. We did not expect the stitches from any insision but in order to line up the bone, some of the loose bone fragments had to be cleaned out first. We got to see Dillon and go to our room for the night about midnight. Cameron and I were exhausted, so we tried to make ourselves comfortable for the night. However, our night ended early as Dillon woke up and was ready to talk about his adventures at 3 in the morning! The nurses were quite surprised that Dillon woke up and did not complain or whine. He wanted to get up and walk around; he ate a popsicle and some jello, and watched a movie. He FINALLY fell asleep again at 6 and was once again awake at 7:30am. It was a long night! Dillon was doing very good, so we all walked to the cafeteria for some breakfast. On our way back to the room we saw the surgeon and he stopped and checked out Dillon's arm. He said everything looked great and would get all of our paperwork ready for check out. He kept his word because by the time we finished eating in our room all of our paperwork was ready and we were able to leave. Dillon was given Loratab and Ibuprofen for the pain. Cameron and I could not believe how high his spirit were. Dillon is so amazing and brave. He loves to look at all of his xrays. Dillon still has a soft cast and will be getting a hard cast on Tuesday. For the past couple of days Dillon has not taken anything for the pain and he is back to his normal self.