Zachary - 1 Year and A Broken Leg

Dear Zachary,

Wow, this is going to be a LONG post. I haven’t posted for a week because of what happened last Saturday.

You’re ONE YEAR OLD (and one week) NOW! Woot! Way to grow boy! I’ll first of all tell you what I would have told you about your twelfth month of life—and then I will tell you about this past week.

Zachary, you still only have ONE tooth. I swear I can see the second tooth ready to come out. It’s on the bottom, right next to the one you have. But, you apparently have no need to have more than one tooth. Maybe you’ll only have one tooth forever. (I hope you don’t have only one tooth forever. You’d look pretty silly as a 16-year-old with only one tooth.)

You’ve started saying more than “Mama” and “Dadda.” Your new word is “BALLOON”! You say it more like “ba’oon.” It is so cute. I’m pretty sure you’re also trying to say “bear,” but it sounds like “boo” instead of “bear.”

You were running all over creation and pulling everything out that you can get your little hands on. But, sadly, well, right now you are in a body cast.

Your hair is so cute. I can’t cut it. I can hardly stand the thought of cutting it. It is so soft and curly. People comment on it all the time.

I swear you glow. I think it’s just because you are still so pure and so precious. Don’t ever lose this glow. You make people happy by just smiling at them. This is a good thing.

When we ask you how old you are, you can hold up one finger (with us giving you an example). Yes! You can tell people how old you are! We also taught you to clap at the end of the Birthday Song. Sooooo fun!

One of my favorite things lately has been that you wave “goodbye” to your dad in the mornings. We wave in the house and when he drives the Bravada, we wave from the balcony too. And you give “hello” waves when your dad comes home. That’s when you get super excited and happy. You LOVE your daddy. Oh, it makes my heart so happy.

Well, now I’m going to tell you what’s been happening this week. You broke your leg. At your birthday party. Before anyone got there. It was horrible.

So I was excited to have a birthday party for you. You’re going to be the only kid to have a big birthday party like that—not only did I promise your dad but I promised myself. The sad part about it was that we weren’t even there to enjoy it. We were at Primary Children’s Medical Center.

Thirty-five people confirmed that they would be there (though I think at least ten of them didn’t come). So we had a bazillion burgers and dogs to feed them. We were having our barbecue party at the park just down the street from us. At about 12:00 noon, your dad, your grandma and grandpa, and I were there setting up. Your dad went to the church to borrow a table. While he was gone, Grandma started cutting the grapes up. You stood by her on the picnic table bench.

All of a sudden, you fell. Grandma caught you by your right hand. You didn’t fall and hit your head. In fact, you didn’t fall all the way down. I don’t think that you even fell on your knees. She caught you and held on to you. I grabbed you to try and comfort you because you were crying.

About then, your dad came back with the table. I had tried to calm you down. Grandpa had tried to calm you down. Grandma had tried to calm you down. Your dad took you and ran around with you because that almost always makes you happy. But, nobody could get you to stop crying. The first guests arrived.

Finally I sat with you on my knee and you calmed down somewhat. I was looking at your knees and noticed your right knee looked like it was a little bit swollen. That made me sad. So I poked you and we discovered that definitely any prodding on your right leg or any movement of your right leg caused you to flinch and start crying again. Holding you still was okay. You just whimpered then.

I offered that maybe you hurt your knee. Grandpa offered that maybe you hurt your hip. None of us really thought that your leg was broken.

I called your pediatrician’s office and asked the nurse on call what I should do. She asked a lot of questions. “He’s been crying for fifteen minutes and he doesn’t usually cry like this…. Yah, every time we touch his right leg…. No, we can’t see any bones out of place…. It was only off the picnic table bench….” She told me to take you to Primary Children’s.

Your dad wasn’t too sure that we needed to go. In fact, he thought you just bruised something and that you would be okay. I was hoping that he was right. But, I don’t recall you ever crying that much over a fall and I don’t recall you ever being so tender to the touch.

So, we left, as friends started showing up. I had your dad and grandpa give you a blessing in the truck before leaving. You calmed down in the truck, after being jostled and buckled in. You almost even fell asleep on the ride to the hospital.

When we got to the hospital at about 1:00, your dad parked the truck and I took you in. It took a while to be seen. You were okay as long as we held you very still. They took you in to the triage room before some of the other children in the waiting room. But, it still took a long time. The triage room nurses agreed that something was wrong with your leg.

They finally took us back to a private ER room. When the ER doctor finally came in, he determined that you probably broke your right femur. Both your dad and I were surprised at this conclusion. So that’s where they planned to take the x-rays. We went with you and watched them take x-rays. Technology is amazing. We could see on the computer screen from the hallway that your leg was for sure broken. BROKEN! Broken. Ugh. Your dad cried. I tried to not lose it. I felt so bad for you. Broken…. A complete spiral fracture.

In the ER you were given a white teddy bear. We named him Jack because the ER doctor’s name was Jackman. You didn’t want anything to do with Jack. I think you needed Woods, your regular teddy bear.

The ER staff then worked with the on-call orthopedic surgeon to decide whether or not you needed surgery. They told us that you would for certain be in a “spica” cast. They told us it would probably be from your belly all the way down to your ankles—on both legs.

When the surgeon finally had a chance to evaluate the situation, she concluded no surgery would be needed. But in order to put a spica cast on, they had to take you to an operating room to sedate you. They told us they would probably take you in somewhere between 5:00 and 5:30.

It was 5:30 when they came to get you. We met both your anesthesiologist and your surgeon. Your orthopedic surgeon’s name is Holmes. They told us it would be between 40 and 45 minutes to cast you. It was 40 minutes when Dr. Holmes came to find us. She told us you did great. We talked about your car seat. And, she gave us some instructions about return visits and other things.

They came and got us to go into the recovery room. They told us you had woken up once, but you were asleep when we got there. You woke up when they wheeled you into the elevator to take you down to the next recovery area. In this room they taught us how to change your diaper. They also taught us how to “petal” you with moleskin so the cast wouldn’t hurt your skin.

We got to leave the hospital about 9:30. They wheeled you out in a wagon. They gave us some heavy duty prescriptions (loratab and valium) that we planned to fill the next morning.

It was so nice to come home and find that Grandma and Aunt Teresa had done their best to put all the food away from the barbecue. Everyone was so sad about what happened.

You and I didn’t go to church on Sunday. You were still pretty worn. You were kind of sick from the medicine. And, I had no idea how I was going to make you sit through three hours of church.

When we came back from getting your prescriptions filled, we pulled out the bouncer we used to put you in when you were tiny. We thought maybe it would be a good way to put you in a semi-sitting position. Almost the second we put you in it, you finally had a real honest smile on your face. You hadn’t smiled very much since you broke your leg—and honestly, no one can blame you. So you’ve spent a lot of time in the bouncer this week.

Your dad came home from meetings that day with a wagon our friend cleaned up for you. She and her sister use this wagon in their garden. They cleaned it and even put a blanket in it for you. We love them even more for doing this.

Grandma and Grandpa had gone home Saturday night while we were at the hospital. But they drove all the way back up here on Sunday to see you. They were so concerned about you. You are dearly, dearly loved. We opened your birthday presents with them here. And we finally sang Happy Birthday to you and ate some birthday cake (that no one touched at the barbecue). Honestly, we were glad that we got some noise-maker presents as birthday gifts. These would be good to play with while you’re trapped.

On Monday, our friends, the Joneses, came and brought you a balloon. They heard how much you love balloons and they wanted to visit you.

Our other friends, the Terrys, brought dinner from the Olive Garden and a great big, stuffed hippopotamus. We named the hippo Terry.

You have received a lot of prayers and well wishes. And your dad and I have been taken care of—like when our friend, Jamie Mascherino, brought us some sandwiches at the hospital. I hope that our family can be able to help people like they have helped us.

This week has been really hard for all of us. You have required more attention even though you are immobile. You have woken up a lot at night. I think, perhaps, it freaks you out when you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t move. When I took you to see Dr. Holmes on Thursday, she said you probably were waking in the middle of the night because of muscle spasms. She told us to give you some of the valium to help. But, it doesn’t help.

When they took x-rays of you on Thursday, it scared me to see that your leg is still broken. But Dr. Holmes was very pleased. She said that at your age all we need to do is make sure that the leg isn’t moving (which it isn’t) and that the pieces of the bone are lined up to allow correct fusion. She said that we get to take your cast off on October 28—a couple days before we originally assumed.

Today, Saturday, may have been the best day. You managed to lay on the floor and roll over both from your back to your front and from your front to your back. We also discovered that you can fit on your little Push ‘n’ Ride four-wheeler. Your spica cast has a bar from knee to knee—which has been very hard to deal with. But that bar fits perfectly across the handle bars and the back of your cast fits perfectly in the seat.

Considering the fact that you are now handicapped, you have had such a good attitude. Thank you for being a good example to me.

I love you VERY much. Your dad loves you VERY much. And, never forget that Heavenly Father loves you VERY much. You are so special. We are so glad you are in our family.