Jase Broke is leg - Femur - Spica Cast
It was a sad day Wednesday morning when Jase accidentally fell out of the bedHe broke his leg (femur bone) and it was nothing short of a nightmare experience that I hope none of you ever have to go through! He was crying and holding his knee and I thought he twisted it or possible hyper extended it. We decided to bring him to the hospital, because we could see any physical sign he was hurt, other than him holding his leg/ knee area. We got to the hospital and they decided to X-ray his leg because it felt swollen when they squeezed the leg compared to the other leg. I guess the muscles and stuff tensed up and started to swell, but because the baby has such chubby little legs it's really hard to see visually they said. The first hospital would not put the cast on, so we had no choice but to take a insanely expensive ambulance ride to another hospital that deals with more trauma like this kind of thing. I really was surprised, considering it was just a leg fracture, and the bones was perfectly aligned and in place, but we did what we had to do. Michele rode in the ambulance and I fallowed behind. Whestchester Medical Center is where we went, and they did a great job all around. Super nice people all around I must say!
Acting like a crazy parent:
Yeah, so I was totally that crazy parent a few times during this process I have to say. When you see your kid getting, what seams to be, un-necessarily probed it drove me insane. He just gets comfy and stops crying, and then like clock work they come back in to check his temperature. He starts screaming again and it's like really? He has a broken leg, why do you have to keep checking his temperature? He is on all these machines already? I know there is a reason, but when you are sitting there watching this it seams like insanity. Like the lawyers decided that it must be done because of all the sue happy people and lawsuits etc.. So now they do everything 5x with different people to insure no mistakes are made. It's a good and bad thing and just they way it is these days I guess.
We also got interrogated for child abuse and asked the same questions over and over by everybody. It's really hard to deal with that, but apparently its standard procedure with injuries like this. I was super offended and wanted to strangle the poor doctors and nurses that have to ask us this crap by law of course. They clearly did not want to do it, because there were zero signs of abuse which we later learned. The kid is usually afraid of the parent and the parents act guilty when there actually is abuse, plus the child usually has other signs of abuse like brusing from being man-handled I guess. Bottom line, as a parent that has never even lightly spanked my kids; it was enraging to deal with this. I was so angry at these people for implying we hurt or kid by stepping on him, or throwing him down to hard, etc.. I can't believe what this world is coming to when all parents get interrogated for the very few that are total scum abusers.. The masses always get punished for the few assholes. Accidents happen and clearly it was our fault he fell out of the bed, but being accused of blatant abuse is jaw dropping from my perspective! They checked his whole body over multiple times looking for other injuries that we were trying to hide. This made him scream of course every time. Very sad and changed my perspective a bit on how being guilty until proven innocent must be for some people. I now know what it feels like, and man does it totally suck. I almost cried after the repeated questioning I was so upset. I had to stay strong though, because Michele was having a hard time which was totally understandable. She had to hold Jases arms when the cast was being put on and she was sobbing, because Jase was screaming and we could do anything accept hold his arms and help keep him restrained. That just upset him even more and made us feel like we were hurting him or something. Brutal I tell you, absolutely brutal.
Look at this freaking thing, and it's called a Spica Cast for those wondering:
My iPhone did a decent job with the low light snapshot
So, clearly a regular car seat will not work with this Spica cast, so what is the solution? Take another $10,000 dollar ambulance ride back home is what the hospital told us we had to do! What?? They make a special car seat, but the hospital no longer carries them and knowbody sells them where you can just pick it up. It costs $1000 dollars as well which is a total rip-off. We ended getting out of there ok without having to take another ambulance ride, but it was not easy! The let us take him using just a booster car seat which uses the regular car seatbelt and works pretty good. Not ideal, but safe enough and no better than being strapped down with Michele on a stretcher. That is way less safe in my opinion, because they are strapped together, and Michele would crush the baby if the ambulance got in a accident. I could not believe they strapped both of them together for the ride from hospital to hospital. Clearly the car seat would have been a better option considering it has a 5-point harness and he had no caste on at that point, but the rules.... He was being transferred and not discharged, so he has to go in the ambulance no matter what. Even though it's clearly not safe at all the way they were strapped together. What are you gonna do. I just had to swallow this nonsense and go along with the parade...
Jase is fine and very happy now, but the freaking cast is insane and he is basically immobilized and needs 100% care again like an infant, but worse. I'm home with him Today and he's doing great with huge smiles and good spirit. I honestly did not expect him to be so excepting of his new hard outfit, but he seams to be dealing with it like a champ!
Diaper changing and keeping this cast clean is going to be really difficult, but we're getting a handle on it thanks to the wealth of information on the internet. Other people that went through this have created websites with videos on how to take care of the baby and change diapers the best way possible considering the cast. Super helpful!
Clearly my time will be extremely limited for the next 4-6 weeks taking care of Jase and everything else in life currently on the plate...
That is about it for this rant of all my thoughts, and now I think I can move on and let all the hospital BS go... Writing it down like this seams to help for some reason get through hard times.
Thanks for checking in and have a good day my friends
Jay
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