Another sad first...

My little man broke his leg today. We were at a furniture store and Carter loves to get up and test all the couches "looking for somewhere really comfy". We had told him that he can't put his shoes on the furniture, so he took them off to sit on the couches. When it came time for him to put them back on, he didn't want to and took off running. Unfortunately, is was a slick concrete floor and he fell. He didn't scream or anything, just cried and said he had broken his ankle (he's told us this before). Mike and I thought he was just being dramatic so we took him out to the car, thinking we would go home and check it out before we decided what to do. When I went to get him out of his seat at home he grabbed his armrests and I could tell there was definitely something wrong. I took him to the insta care, because it's super close to our house (side note - when you have a children's hospital 15 minutes away, just go there - it's worth the extra co-pay). It was obvious that he was in a lot of pain, but he just fell and landed on the floor. He said his femur (thighbone) hurt. You don't just break your femur falling down, right? Wrong. Poor kid. As soon as we pulled his pants off it was obviously swollen, bowed, and one thigh was longer than the other one. I know that there was no way I could have known, but when he should have been immobilized, I was driving him to insta care, carrying him in, pulling off his pants when they probably should have just been cut off, and carrying him to the X-ray. I feel horrible. As soon as they saw the X-ray they called Children's Hospital and got an ambulance. They came and put him on a body board, got an IV going (on the first try, thank goodness), and gave him some morphine. There was talk of surgery, it was a spiral break, clean through. Luckily once Ortho came down they decided that they could do a closed reduction with anesthesia. Unluckily, if we want the best orthopedists, we have to wait until Monday morning to do that. So Carter is stuck in traction, doped up on Morphine and Valium until Monday. At which point they will put him in a full leg cast that wraps around his hips. To say the least, the next 3-5 weeks will be a challenge. Moral of the story: When your kid says it's broken, it just might be. On a more serious note, I don't think I have ever experienced anything so heart wrenching as seeing him in so much pain. When they were putting him in traction his whole body was shaking and he was crying for them to stop. He didn't care that it would make him feel better later. I don't know how parents with really sick kids deal with it. I would rather break both of my legs than see him go through this. It definitely makes me think differently about my own parents and appreciate all that they did for me growing up. I can't wait for this to heal so he can get back to being himself!