Broken Arm

One of the boys' favorite things to do for a Family Home Evening activity is to stand on Dad's hands.  I will lie down on my back with my arms stretched out on the ground above my head.  Each boy in turn will stand on my open hands.  I will then lift them up in the air as they try to balance themselves on my hands.  It has become somewhat of a right of passage in our family.  The older boys are always excited when the younger boys can finally stand up in the air on Dad's hands.

This past Monday, we had our first injury.  Kaden was standing on my hands as I was trying to lower him back down to the ground.  Often times I will throw them over to the couch instead of lowering them to the ground and in hindsight, that would have been a better alternative on Monday for Kaden.  As I was lowering him to the ground, he lost his balance and I was unable to help him regain his balance.  He fell to the side and landed on his right arm.  We all heard a snapping sound and feared for the worst.

We felt his lower and upper arm, but could not detect an obvious break.  He seemed to have a fairly good range of motion, so we decided to ice his arm and put him to bed and see what the morning would bring.  The next morning, we could tell by the swelling around his elbow that he was going to need x-rays, so Brooke took him into the doctor after the rest of the crew got off to school.  It was hard for the doctors (pediatric and orthopedic) to get a clear picture of his arm due to the swelling, but they finally determined that he has a hairline fracture at the bottom of his humerus.  Kaden is in a splint until at least next week when they will take more x-rays (after the swelling has subsided) and determine whether he will need a cast or not.

Kaden is pretty bummed about not being able to play soccer (most likely for the remainder of the season), but is otherwise in good spirits.  His brothers have been eager to help him, which is fun for Brooke and I to watch.  They are making his bed for him each morning, doing his chores and helping him carry his backpack to school.

On Tuesday, when Tanner got home from school, he asked Brooke how Kaden was doing.  He then asked her to let him know when Kaden got home from school.  A little while later, Tanner thought he heard the bus, so he ran outside to look for Kaden.  The bus wasn't there, so Tanner came back inside.  Brooke asked him why he was so anxious to meet Kaden and he responded that he wanted to make sure he was out there when the bus dropped Kaden off from school so that he could carry Kaden's backpack for him.

Trevor is even going to "help him" this weekend by playing on Kaden's soccer team on Saturday.  Kaden's team will have several team members out of town on Saturday and will have to forfeit unless they have at least one more player.  In this league, they allow teams to pull from the younger league if they are short players, so Trevor quickly volunteered.

Hopefully the prognosis next week will indicate a quick recovery, but we know that regardless of the news next week kaden will be fine.  He has such a positive attitude about everything that he always finds a way to laugh about things that the rest of us would probably get depressed about.