The fun just never ends

Sorry for the long delay in posting, but you'll be happy to know that my medical terminology class is coming along fine.

What's that? You didn't realize I was taking this course? Well, neither did I! I certainly never signed up for it, but the past year has been a veritable bounty of medical knowledge for me: Meniere's Disease, Vasospastic Syndrome, etc. etc. just to name a few of the more exotic ones. At this rate, I may as well sign up for medical school so I can start earning more money to help PAY for all this knowledge!


This week's words are: Avulsion Fracture off the Distal Phalanx. What a mouthful, but I was very proud of myself because I actually spelled everything correctly when I went to look it up on the internet after getting home from the hospital.


So here's the story: For the second year in a row, the boys have been playing church basketball with the local ward, even though we're not LDS. Anyway, this year has been really fun as they are both very athletic and work together like a well-oiled machine (at least on the court - I don't know why we can't have that same camaraderie at home!), and it's been fun for me to watch and listen to the other parents as they praise my boys. The games have been much more entertaining than any NBA game I've ever seen, with both teams doing body slams, wrestling, etc. in their attempt to keep control of the ball.


Thursday is game night, so I rushed home from work so that I could get them back to the school on time for the start of the game. I pulled up to the school's front door and booted them out at 5:55 - a mere five minutes to practice before the start of the game! After dropping them off, I went to find a parking space and gather my half-time reading material together. I wandered in just as the game was starting and did my typical proud-mom-who-doesn't-really-know-squat-about-basketball routine: Cheering only when a basket was made because I know that's a good thing.



Our team played just as hard as usual, but couldn't score a basket to save their life. The ball would be thrown up, roll over the basket, and drop down into the waiting hands of the other team. It was quite painful to watch, but our team still showed their usual spirit.



After the game, the kids and I walked out to the Tahoe. Braden was a little subdued (e.g., not binging off the walls like he usually does), but I assumed it was because of their loss. As we drove home, I noticed him carefully removing a bandaid from the pointer finger on his left hand. I knew it hadn't been there before, so I asked what happened.



"Oh, just a bad jam," I was told. Apparently, during the warm-ups, somebody had thrown a wild ball which he blocked with his hand to prevent himself from being smashed in the face (although it still managed to create a small chip to one of his front teeth. Great.). His nail had been bleeding, so he got a band-aid from the coach and continued to play the entire game.



I turned on the dome lights to take a look. HOLY! FRICKIN'! COW! was his finger swollen, and lovely shades of purple to boot. At home, I looked at it more closely and had the sneaking suspicion that it was probably broken. Having just gotten done with a finger injury of my own, I thought about just using my splint and taping it. But that still, quiet voice inside told me I needed to have it looked at. After calling my mom to get another expert opinion to tell me what I already knew, I decided we'd indeed make the drive into town (25 minutes away). To say that Braden put up a protest is an understatement, and part of me thought I was going to have to hogtie him and drag him bodily back out to the truck. After bribing him with the promise of dinner at McDonald's, we were on our way.



The instacare in town closes at 8:00 so we had to go to the hospital emergency room, a place where Braden and I have together spent many a night ;). After the typically long wait (which is by itself going to be the topic of another blog in the next day or two), we got the x-rays and the diagnosis: definitely broken. On a side note, Braden and I had a small wager going on what the diagnosis would be. The good news is that I won; the bad news is that the 10-minute back rub he owes me will have to wait several months until he heals.



But I digress. The diagnosis of course was the avulsion mumbo-jumbo listed above. What that means is that when the ball hit his finger, the tendon that attaches the tip bent backward so quickly that it literally ripped off a chunk of bone. Can I get a great big Double-Ouch?!!! Because it involves not just the bone but the tendon too, healing is going to be a bit trickier than just a normal break, and if not taken care of properly can result in "Mallet Finger," another fun term to add to my list.



Anyhoo, wish him luck as we go to a hand specialist on Monday...

February 28, 2009