Broken Elbow?

On Sunday, July 11th, we went for a walk as a family. Taeya and Gordon stayed at the fishy park while I went home and got dinner ready. Taeya came in from the park crying pretty hard. She had fallen off the monkey bars (we didn't even know she could do the monkey bars by herself, she was almost to the end). At first we couldn't tell exactly where she was hurt. She wouldn't move her arm at all. We tried to turn a movie on for her on my bed, but she wouldn't even lay down cause she said it hurt. That night she slept sitting up. I had to prop up pillows against her dresser and she slept sitting up. After she fell asleep I layed her down, but a few hours later she woke up and was mad at me for laying her down. So I gave her some tylenol, propped up her pillow and she went back to sleep - sitting up!

The next day she showed me that she could move her arm, but she didn't unless she had to. I asked her if she wanted to go to the doctor and she got really mad when I mentioned it, I figured she was probably fine. I had to work on Monday, so I thought I would give it one more day to see how it was.

On Tuesday we had another busy day. She stayed at Mariel's while I went to a class and I asked Mariel to watch her and see if she thought I should take her to the doctor or not. She thought I should, she said she wouldn't do anything (she usually goes straight for Asilia's dress-ups, but since she didn't want to move her arm, she refused to change her clothes), so I called and made a doctor appointment, but Gordon wanted to go so he asked me to make it for as late as possible. I was still doubting that anything was wrong, because I figured since she could move it, it would be fine.

Tuesday our appointment was at 4:40 pm. The PA looked at her arm, and diagnosed that the problem was her elbow. It was swollen which usually indicates a fracture, but Taeya didn't seem to be in as much pain as most of the other patients with fractures, so she splinted it, and sent us over to the hospital for x-rays. They called us that night with the results. The said that their was no definite fracture but they see fluid, which indicates a fracture??. Apparently elbows have to be set by an orthopedic doctor, so we were referred to another doctor.

On Wednesday I called the orthopedic, but they didn't want to see her until the swelling went down, so we made an appointment for Monday (July 19th).

On Monday we had another x-ray at the orthopedic office, with the same results. No definite break, but still fluid, so the casted her arm just to make sure. Apparently the fracture is the bone on the back of the arm, above the elbow. She told us she wanted a red cast, but while we were waiting to get the cast on she saw a purple cast with flowers painted on it, so we went with that one instead!

She loves the attention she is getting with her new cast! Thank goodness she can swim with it! Now we just have to wait for 3 weeks until we can get rid of that heavy, hard cast!

This pictures was taken Tuesday night (July 13th) when we got home from the doctor, not sure if it was broken or not. She didn't like the sling cause her arm kept sliding out.

Here is the cast on Tuesday morning (1 week later).

Here is the cast an hour of so later after we painted on some pretty flowers!