Last October, my brother (Robbie), his wife, and son were home from Hawaii (he's in the Army). Ryan, Robbie, and Papaw were out back at Papaw's tossing around a football, well the football went over the fence, so Rob lifted Ryan over it to get the ball. *Note* - Ryan is really tall for his age. While Ryan was being lifted over the fence, his bootlace got caught. Rob thought he'd cleared the fence so he let go. Ryan landed on his left elbow. I got a phone call from Mom who wanted me to know what had happened. I talked to Ryan and he said it hurt but would be ok until I got there. Jim and I arrived and Ryan was sitting in the chair holding his arm. I looked at it and seen a huge knot. A few minutes later Ryan was complaining about it so Jim looked at it again and it had become so swollen his shirt was cutting into his arm! We headed for the ER, which was just on the other side of town. The X-ray tech brought Ryan back and handed us a CD with the x-rays on them. She said she couldn't tell us anything but we'd need the CD. In other words - there was a BIG problem! The Dr came in and said the bone just above the elbow was broken, and he'd need surgery to have pins inserted to correct it! I was like BACK UP DR - what are you talking about! This was my baby, and this Dr is standing there telling me they were going to go ahead and give Ryan an IV so they could start him on pain meds so they'd be working before the ambulance got there to transport him to Children's Hospital in Cincinnati!! And by the way, his surgery is set for 7am! He could've at least told me to sit down before he started talking! Let's see, we took care of ER visit, x-rays, IV, ambulance ride, sleep-over in a hospital, surgery, pins in his elbow, and a cast(Bengals colors) in one trip!! The surgery only took a few minutes, but those were the longest minutes of my life! Four weeks later they removed the pins (grabbed them with a pair of plier-looking things and twisted and pulled them out) and put him in another cast. Two weeks after that he was done with the casts, but the Dr was concerned about the way a small mass of bone was building up in the elbow. We went back today for a check-up and the Dr said he is good as new and doesn't need to see him anymore! Here's a pic of today's x-ray, the arrow is where the break was.
