On Wednesday afternoon Tom had half an hour to spare before rugby training so he took a cardboard box over to the tennis courts to slide down the grassy hill - a favourite pastime for lots of the local kids. The cardboard broke into 2 pieces and he though it would be fun to try "skiing" down the hill. On his first attempt, just before he could really take off, he fell over and was in excruciating pain. The tennis coach at the nearby tennis court phoned me and told me to come over and help. Tom could not weight bear at all so with the help of Bec, who was fortunately picking up Josh from his tennis lesson, we carried him very slowly back to our house and lay him on the sofa. Once there we debated what action to take. I tend to be a strong believer in "he'll be all right" but Tess reminded me that she had suffered a broken finger for 2 weeks before I took any action and Tom was adamant that he just wanted to lie on the sofa. The last time he was adamant he just wanted to lie down he had broken his arm. Bec and I carefully lifted him into the car and I set off for Mona Vale hospital which has a paediatric unit. We were lucky that at 6pm on a Wednesday evening there were not too many emergencies presenting at the Emergency Department and we got seen very quickly. The doctor who examined Tom was pretty sure that his leg was not broken because the pain was so high up the femur where it's at it's thickest but she decided to x-ray just in case and lucky she did. The minute they realised it was broken everything changed - he was immediately put in a hospital bed, immobilised as much as possible and given some strong pain killers. After a while the surgeon came to see us and explained that because of the location of the break there was no possibility of putting Tom in a cast and the best course of action was to put him in traction for 2 weeks! We were lucky that the bones hadn't moved at all so there was no need to operate and reset them - a big relief! They located a traction bed and put him in it - that was a very painful experience and Tom was given even stronger pain killers - and finally at around midnight he was wheeled up to the paediatric ward.
Waiting in Emergency
In bed waiting to see the surgeon
Leg in traction in the paediatric unit
The view from Tom's bed
The following morning they did another couple of x-rays including x-raying the right leg so that they had some sort of comparison. The surgeon came to see me and said that they'd found a tumour in his bone where the break was. In order to investigate the tumour they needed to do an MRI. This provided great excitement for us because it was an "outing" and Tom got 2 rides in an ambulance. Fortunately the MRI showed that the tumour is completely benign and Tom has fibrous dysplasia which in this case weakened the bone leading to the fracture. As far as we're aware we don't need to take any future action but possibly high contact sports should be avoided where possible!
"Smell that fresh air!"
Over the weekend Jules was able to take over bedside duty and I took Tess to tennis. It was their final game for the season and it was nail biting coming down to the last point as to whether they'd get through to the finals. Luckily, Tess and Becky won the point and their team are in second place with the finals being played after the Easter weekend.
Tess, Becky C, Becky W
Becky C and Tess
Tom wanted Jules to stay overnight at the hospital with him at the weekend so Tess and I had dinner with the Christensens. This is Sarah enjoying being taller than Tess!
Tess' school photo
Before the break Tom had represented his school in the next level of swimming carnivals and he got 3rd place in Freestyle which he was very pleased with.
Also before the break Tom bought himself a new skateboard and he and Hunter spent a happy afternoon at the local skatepark. That was when I thought I might need an ambulance!
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