... you take out your heart and expose it to the world

I haven't posted for the last few days because I've been in the hospital.

My wife and son slid/fell down the stairs on Sunday night while I was at hockey. One of the guys who works at the rink came on to the bench and yelled he was looking for lawryde for an emergency phone call.

I knew immediately something was wrong with Carter. It was just a matter of what level of bad it was. Had he stopped breathing, did he have a seizure? I didn't know. My wife told me what had happened and told me to meet her at the ER. I ripped of my hockey shit and ran under the cold shower to get the stink off me. By the time I made it outside into the cold 10 pm night, I was saying to myself over and over that he was going to be OK.

I drove about 90 down I-74 and made it to the ER in a few minutes. I heard him crying as soon as I got to the floor he was on. They were examining him to see what was up. Everything seemed OK until they got to his left leg. He shrieked when they extended it. Nothing in my life thus far has made me feel worse than not being able to do anything for him and stand by while he was being tortured (all be it necessary) by the doctors.

They decided he needed head to toe X-rays and a head CT scan to see exactly what was wrong. Every time he would twitch like babies do, he would scream in pain, then out of exhaustion he would try to close his eyes and sleep. A few minutes later he would twitch again and get the shock of the pain.

After a half hour or so of this, they took him to get X-rayed. They didn't let us in the room. He was shrieking the whole time. I'm sure they had to extend all his limbs and the table they had him on was cold. This was terribly painful for us too. I just tried to consol my wife and try not to cry too much myself. I tried to make sure she knew it wasn't her fault. It was purely an accident, and it could have happened to either of us. I've slipped on those damn stairs on several occasions.

After the X-rays we went and got his head scanned. It wasn't too bad since his body was wrapped up tight.

We went back to the exam room and the doctor came in and told us they found out what was wrong. He had fractured his left femur (the big bone in your leg that goes from your hip to your knee). It was a clean break, just about in half. They would splint it right away, and put a cast on it the next day when the Orthopedic surgion would be in.

We got to our room at like 2 AM and had a terribly restless night. Even with the leg splinted he was really uncomfortable. I think I got about 3 hours of sleep.

The next day he got the cast put on around 11:00 in the morning. They had to put him under full anesthetic so they could set it without him moving around. It was so hard to leave him before he went to the operating room. My chest was all tight and I couldn't help crying.

They put a full hip spica cast on him.



Something like that except without the bar in the middle and he has a penis.

The Orthopedist said he should heal in 2-3 weeks since babies heal so fast. It's going to be a tough couple weeks. It's not exactly easy to put a diaper in that little space for his junk.

Today he seems pretty good. With his hips immobilized, I don't think his leg is hurting him much now. He's pretty much back to the way he was before the accident behavior-wise.

My wife is doing a bit better too. She kind of slid down the stairs with him in her arms, and he kind of snapped forward in her arms. Her tailbone hurts.

It's still so sad to look at him in the cast, but it could have been so much worse. Bones heal. He'll be fine with no long term effects and won't ever remember it happened.

It was harder for his mom and I.