Way back in July--on Pioneer Day--Timothy broke his arm.  The story is this: Jared Barney got a brand-spanking-new motorcycle that he'd brought out at the family Pioneer Day party to show off.  All the men folk had gone out to ooh and aah over it and several took it for test spin.  Then Timothy decided to take it out for a spin even though he knows how I feel about motorcycles.  He did not wear a helmet.  Since Timothy has little experience with motorcycles, he gave it too much juice and popped an unintended wheelie.  Then he fell off.  He thinks he landed on his feet and then fell forward but the details are a bit fuzzy for him as these types of things happen so fast.  I saw Jared come in and say to Megan, "You have to come right now," which is never a good sign since Megan is the medic on duty at all family functions.  Then Anders came and told me that Timothy was taking a really long time on his ride.  I didn't put it all together until someone else (who??) said to me, "We're pretty sure Timothy broke his arm."  What??  I'm a bit slow on the uptake.  

I went outside and watched all these cars head off toward where Timothy was, but as I have no medical training and no desire to see my hubby looking wounded, I just hung at Megan's house waiting to hear how bad it was.  Then the cars came back and Timothy got out NOT covered in blood, with his head declared okay by Megan (though she told me to force Timothy to get it checked out, which I completely failed to do as he was not cooperative), but very, very pale with an arm that looked possibly broken, but not necessarily so.  

We gathered the offspring and drove to urgent care where I dropped off Timothy.  I drove the kids home and dropped them off and then returned to urgent care for the verdict on the arm.  At first the doctor thought it wasn't broken because of the angle of the xrays.  Then he decided it definitely was broken and that it was a really bad break.

The next day Timothy met with an orthopedic surgeon who said, "We've been waiting for you all day."  Yay.  The doctor and his PA explained just how bad the break was--Timothy shattered his bone at the wrist, pushing fragments of bone all over the place--and further explaining that surgery was necessary ASAP to try and smush everything back together again.

Timothy scheduled the surgery, but after talking to his sister and a little convincing from me and higher sources, he agreed to meet with a hand specialist.  I'm so glad he did.  The surgery lasted a good 90 minutes longer than she, the surgeon, had first anticipated since his wrist was so messed up.  He got a titanium plate and a bunch of screws and who knows what all else.  The surgeon didn't look very happy when she came to talk to me after the surgery.  She said that she'd done the best that she could, but she wasn't sure he'd get complete movement again.  She was predicting a long schedule of physical therapy and other dire things.  

At his second follow-up appointment she expressed amazement at how well his recovery was going and how much movement he had already.  She also said she would make physical therapy optional--that he could go once or twice to learn what exercises he could be doing--but that his wrist was profoundly better than she expected.  Yay!!

Even better, Timothy promised me that he would never ride a motorcycle again.  Hallelujah.  Now if only I could extract the same promise from each of my children.  

As a small side-note, I convinced Timothy to get a blessing before his surgery.  Since no family was available, two men from the ward came.  The blessing was so different from what I expected.  The basic gist--I should have written it down--is that things would go well and he would heal well because he had a lot of church work to do and he needed to get back to it.  Hmm.  

The first three pictures are of the bruising on the non-broken arm.

EXAM REPORT:

CT of the left wrist without IV contrast History: Left wrist fracture Comparison: Radiograph of 5/25/2015. Procedure: Helical axial CT of the left wrist was performed without IV contrast.  Coronal and sagittal reformations are included.  3-D bone surface reformats are also included, performed at an independent workstation by the technologist. Findings: The comminuted fracture of the distal radius extends to the radiocarpal articular surface involving the radiolunate and radioscaphoid articulations.  The fracture results in a 7 mm gap at the radiolunate articulation and moderate volar angulation distally.  One larger fracture fragment is displaced 9 mm volarly.  There is 5 mm of proximal displacement of the volar fracture fragments with the dorsal distal radial fracture fragment abutting the dorsal aspect of the lunate.  There is up to 4 mm of step-off at the articular surface. The fracture also involves the sigmoid notch of the distal radius at the distal radioulnar joint. No dislocation identified. Impression: Comminuted displaced and angulated intra-articular distal radial fracture involving the radiocarpal and distal radioulnar joints as described above.