The Stuff Broken Bones Are Made Of

Friday night we decided to go out for dinner with my family for Jackson's birthday. We were running around the house trying to get ready when the drama began.

Perhaps this would be a good time to interrupt my story to mention that our dog Macy has a problem drinking water and dripping it all over the floor.

And perhaps this would be a good time to mention that we have a linoleum floor in our kitchen.

And perhaps this would be a good time to mention that Jeremy was walking barefooted through our kitchen and stepped in the before mentioned puddle.

And it may or may not have looked a lot like this:

And Jeremy crashed onto the floor and landed on his right elbow.

The same elbow that was broken when he was a kid during Bible Drill. Remind me to tell you that story later.

And the same elbow that Jeremy had surgery on during high school when he was playing baseball.

I ran into the kitchen and saw Jeremy laying on the floor and he asked me to help him up. I distinctly remember telling him that I didn't think I could support all his weight with only one hand when Jeremy had me try to get him up anyways.

And it probably didn't help him at all that when I tried to help him up with only one hand that his hand slipped out of mine and he fell back on the same elbow again.

Jeremy insisted that he was "fine" and that he would see the doctor on Saturday, so we ate supper at Cici's pizza and after watching Jeremy try to eat left handed and be miserable every time he moved his right arm, Jeremy and I headed to Primed. We got there and saw a sign on the door that said "Our X-Ray machine is down. If you feel you need X-ray's, please go to the E.R."

So we went to the ER, otherwise known as the land of Swine Flu. I was nauseated with the amount of germs we were exposing ourselves to. I couldn't help but think that "Jeremy's gonna have a broken elbow and I'm gonna get the swine flu" from this whole ordeal all because Macy dripped water on the floor.

And FYI Moms: Please, for the love of all things right and good in the world, teach your kids to cover their mouth when they are coughing and sneezing, especially when it appears that they have the swine flu.

3 hours later Jeremy got his x-rays which the doctor pronounced as "Good. No breaks."

After a total of 5 hours we were sent home at 12:30 in the morning with a sling. Jeremy stayed out of work on Saturday and was miserable. He attempted to go to work on Sunday and came home. After several hours of watching his arm start to swell really badly and getting very feverish we decided to try Primed again. Jeremy said the pain was still an 11 on a scale of 1 to 10. Neither of us were fully convinced that his arm wasn't broken despite the ER doctor's declaration.

Jeremy waited at Primed for an hour and still had a 4-5 hour wait ahead of him, so we packed up and headed back to the land of Swine Flu, which by this time had lots of new residents wearing masks.

Is it possible to bathe in hand sanitizer?

So we finally get into a room in the ER and see the exact same doctor as Friday night. Guess what? He was a jerk then, and he was a jerk last night!

We showed him the swelling and redness in Jeremy's arm and the doctor decided that new x-rays's weren't necessary because "it won't show us anything new" so he ran some blood work instead thinking that Jeremy might have an infection. I asked him what would have caused an infection in Jeremy's arm if nothing was broken and he didn't have an answer for me. I've watched enough episodes of House to know when a doctor doesn't know what's wrong with you, and this doctor was clearly just grasping at straws.

Jeremy's blood work came back okay, but he gave Jeremy IV antibiotics and steroids and sent us home again with instructions to go see an orthopedic today. I called at 7:00 this morning and got Jeremy an appointment with an orthopedic doctor and Jeremy went in for the appointment at 10:00 this morning. The doctor pulled the x-rays the ER had taken on Friday night, took one look at them, and said, "You have a fracture on the radial head of your elbow and a torn ligament."

Stupid ER doctors....

Jeremy did not get a cast because the orthopedic doesn't want his arm to stiffen so he sent Jeremy home in a sling and is going to see him again in 3 weeks (right after our beach trip) to see how he's doing, and Jeremy has to start flexing his arm to maintain movement.

Once again...What stupid ER doctors.

And just think; all this ER fun is before Obamacare starts!!!