All About "The Claw"

Well, we've officially had a first in our family . . . first kid to break a bone! And of course, I'm here to tell the story :-).

On a Monday evening back in early December, Chris and I were taking our online bible class while the kids were playing upstairs. Our class was from 7:00-7:50pm, and our routine was for the big kids to help put the twins to bed at 7:30pm. About 7:20, Brooke came downstairs and told us she had hurt her hand. She wasn't crying or worked up about it, so we just told her to grab an ice-pack and go on to bed. 

The next morning (Tuesday), she got up and ready for school. She mentioned again that her hand was hurting, but it looked okay and she could move it. We sent her on to school. 

When I picked her up from school, her hand looked very swollen and very bruised. The bruising looked so bad that it kind of freaked me out for a minute, but then I realized that she had black marker on the side of her hand! Once she washed up, there was still quite a bit of visible bruising. We decided Chris would take her to Urgent Care and have it looked at. 

I was only a little surprised when he texted me to tell me that her (right) hand was fractured right above her pinky finger. I felt pretty guilty about it, though, because we had really dismissed her the night before when she said she had hurt her hand. We still don't know exactly what happened!

Urgent Care wrapped it up with a splint and told us to follow up with our pediatrician. We sent her to school on Wednesday while I picked up the x-ray discs from Urgent Care and got an appointment with the pediatrician. He was able to see her that day, so Chris picked her up from school and took her to the appointment. 

They took some Christmas pics at school before she left <3. So cute!

Our pediatrician basically didn't even want to look at it. He didn't look at the x-rays at all. Instead, he referred us to an orthopedic doctor because he felt like the break was either close to or on a growth plate and that was out of his area of expertise. 

The orthopedic doctor we were referred to turned out to be Dr. Isaac . . . the same doc I had seen for my ankle. I had to laugh because on my final visit to Dr. Isaac, he said, "I'll probably see you soon since you have four kids!", and I just laughed. I was sure to share that with him when we saw him!

He was able to see Brooke on Thursday (December 9th) morning. He confirmed that she actually had two small fractures. However, they weren't on the growth plate so he felt like a cast would be sufficient to help her hand heal up nicely. 

Brooke was never scared or shy with the doctor. And when she found out she was getting a cast, she chose the brightest color pattern they had!

She was pretty proud of the whole ordeal.

After getting her cast on, Brooke told me that Brecklyn would probably be jealous of the cast. I laughed because I knew that would not be the case! And sure enough, Brecklyn said she would be super embarrassed if she had to wear that thing :-).

The way Brooke's hand was casted made doing anything with that hand pretty difficult. She had a very hard time writing and that definitely led to some frustrations for her. However, when we went back two weeks later for follow-up x-rays, the doctor determined her hand was healed enough to get the cast off. 

Our brave girl wasn't scared of getting the cast off at all. She was just interested in the process. 

Once the cast was removed, we were instructed to continue to splint her finger/hand for another two weeks. After about a week of splinting, she started having an allergic reaction to the tape or splint, and we gave up on it. Thankfully, when we went for her final follow-up appointment earlier today, everything looked great and has healed beautifully. Brooke was certainly happy to hear this news!

She was so cute and chatty with Dr. Isaac during the follow-up appointment. I think she charmed him :-). She wanted to know what all the bones are called and why certain models in his exam rooms work the way they do, etc. He was very patient and happy to answer her questions.

We are so grateful that things healed up well. Hopefully, we won't have to see Dr. Isaac again for a long time, but I'm thankful we have a good orthopedic doctor if we need one again!