Manning has officially earned the title of The first Harris boy to break a bone. The night of Memorial Day he was playing with Mattix and Carter and they were jumping off the couch and landing on the bean bag. This is a stunt that they do quite often and it seems innocent enough. At least until they started jumping from the back of the couch to the bean bag chair. After seeing how much fun it looked when the other two did it, Manning decided he had to try it. It didn't turn out the way he was probably planning, because he couldn't get up and was screaming. Everyone examined it and we tried to ice it. It swelled and bruised. But it looked like a good sprain. And with a lot of family stuff going on the next few days he started walking on it with a limp and we didn't think anything of it, but it was a bad sprain.Well after about a week or so we noticed he was running and walking but his foot was starting to turn to help him compinsate for the pain. Matt and I both agreed, this isn't normal, it was time to take him in. Yeah the x-rays confirmed it was broken. So the doctor sent us to Primary Children's Hospital the next day. They too confirmed it and gave him a cast.
We thought for sure he would not be a happy camper. But they gave him permission to walk on it and even gave him a special shoe to wear. They said the type of break he had was a lucky one. The bone didn't shift it had stayed in place and even started to heal. (Even with him walking, running and jumping on it for 8 days.)
Let's just say that this did not hold him back in any way. And even gave him a sense of confidence.
He got creative and started using it as a break when he rode his bike. The doctor urged me to keep it clean. (Have they met my child?) I tried to put a sock over it to keep the dirt and stuff out.
They also said I had to keep it dry. This kid LOVES water. I tried so hard to keep him out of the water. I bathed him with a wash rag over the sink. We even had to shut off all the valves to the outside because he kept sneaking the water on. When we were close to the end of the 2 weeks they said he had to wear it we went to a family BBQ. The kids were going to be having water balloons and squirt guns. We did not want to torture the poor kid. So Daddy duct taped a garbage bag over the cast and we crossed our fingers that the cast wouldn't get wet. It got a little wet but nothing like the night he decided enough was enough and climbed into the ice cooler on the back porch to play in the water. Nana and I sat with the blow dryer trying to dry it out as good as we could.
One of the cool parts of having a cast is letting everyone sign it. He loved that part. And even kept signing it himself. (I think he was more excited about the idea of being able to color on himself and not get in trouble than the writing on his cast part)
2 weeks later we went back to the orthopedic to get it off. We met with a different doctor than the one we saw the first time. She had gone over his x-rays to get familiar with his chart and found a second break on the top of his foot. This was a second one to the one they found initially near the bottom of the fibula. She was worried about the way the break looked. It was kind of off. So she sent us to get a couple different angles of x-rays. She had him pick a new color of cast. I was so disappointed. I can't imagine longer than 2 weeks with that thing on. And she was saying this break could take another 3 weeks. Surprisingly she came back with another doctor to get his opinion. His bone healed on it's own correctly in the time he had the cast on already. That was awesome! We walked out of there cast free and very happy. We picked up the other boys and celebrated by going swimming. Than he took a long 45 minute bath.
They cut this thing off and I do have to say, it was stinky, dirty and some how full of dirt and wood chips. I promise I tried to keep it clean and stuff out of it.
I'd like to say that I hope this doesn't happen again but with a house full of boys I am afraid I have a long road ahead of me.
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