Kyle's Broken Arm

On Wednesday September 27th we were going to bike to the beach from Barbara's house in Hobe Sound, FL. We had Kyle in a child seat and I was handing the bike to Tommy. Tommy grabbed the handle bars and with Kyle's weight in the back the bike fell over. It all happened so quickly, and I couldn't catch the bike before it fell over. Kyle outstretched his left arm to break the fall. It was too much for his little arm and the bone broke right above his elbow.

He had surgery in Florida on Friday September 29th. The surgery went really smoothly. We were very lucky and had an excellent orthopaedic surgeon. He put two titanium pins in Kyle's elbow to keep the bone in place. The following Wednesday he had a follow-up exam and x-ray. The bone was setting nicely and the break was barely noticeable. Kyle was such a trooper through the whole ordeal. He loved swimming in the pool, so that was the hardest part... watching Reeve learn how to swim without a life jacket. He was down for a day or so, and had some pretty major meltdowns. Mainly because I didn't want to baby him and he wanted me to carry him around everywhere. I had to explain to him that he didn't break his legs!

Now he's in very good spirits and really looking forward to getting the cast off. We met with an Orthopaedic doctor here in Wisconsin. He is a very nice doctor and really did a good job with Kyle. He had to cut Kyle's old cast off which was a bit traumatic for Kyle. The cutter was attached to a large noisy vacuum which made Kyle nervous. Kyle also saw for the first time the pins sticking out of his arm. When Kyle saw the pins he said, "Oh no, this is not good. This is just not a good day. Please don't take them out. Don't take them out!" Then the doctor said the pins looked good and that there was no infection. He put some padding under the pins and then put a new cast on his arm. Kyle chose the purple.

Reeve was fascinated by the whole procedure, as you can see from the above picture.
Kyle's cast comes off and the pins will be removed on November 9th.