Broken Bones

I wanted to update about the little boy in the 4-wheeler wreck that I posted yesterday. I got this email from his mom tonight. Please remember him in your prayers. Here's what she said:


Okay, I'll try to update everyone at once! Today has been a really trying day.

First of all, I was really thinking that Noah's injuries were minor. Like as in a little tear in the cartilage, maybe a torn tendon or ligament, that type of thing. His pain has been almost non-existent with it only hurting if he tried to stand on it. The swelling was not atrocious, and there is no bruising whatsoever. So when the doctor came in after the x-ray and said, "This is baaaad... His leg is broken." I was unprepared, to say the least. He said that we'd need to go to an orthopedic surgeon but first we needed to do an MRI. Then after the MRI he came back and said, "This is really bad. It's worse than I originally thought. Y'all will probably have to go to LeBonheur to have this fixed. The break is in his growth plate. It's broken in multiple places." So I sat there looking like a deer in the headlights. I only took Noah today as a precaution so that down the road nothing would come back to bite us because we didn't have it x-rayed!! There was no sign that there was this kind of damage. And believe me, I was LOOKING for an excuse to take him to have it seen about. It wasn't even a bad accident!!

We went to the ortho and he said to us, "This is B-A-D. I'll have to consult a pediatric orthopedic specialist for this. It's really bad." Then he showed it to me on the MRI. Oh, y'all.... It's awful. Noah's growth plate in the tibia (large bone of the lower leg) is shattered. The protrusions on the outside top of the bone are broken off, and there are two breaks thru the growth plate and down into the shaft of the bone. One looks like a twisted break (don't remember what kind of fracture that is called) that starts at the top corner of the growth plate and runs a couple of inches down and around into the shaft of the bone. The dr. is worried that Noah's leg will just quit growing altogether, or that it may grow unevenly and leave him with a crooked leg. He said that it's the worst growth plate fracture he has ever treated or seen in his office in all the years he's been practicing. This was not a record I was ever interested in breaking, no pun intended. I'm still in stun mode. This just doesn't seem real.

Thankfully, we don't have to go to LeBonheur, but Noah does have to have surgery. We'll be having surgery some time in the morning on Wednesday to screw the floating pieces back together. To put Humpty Dumpty back together again, the doctor said. He also said that he would not be able to do anything to repair the growth plate because any attempt at repair would only worsen the injury. And the consequences.

We go tomorrow for pre-op and to find out surgery time. I'll let y'all know. It will be outpatient and we should be home in the evening on Wednesday.

Thanks for checking on us. I appreciate y'all.

I'm still numb.

Lori