Fracture!

As you may guess, this story comes from the Thelins, as told by Jan:

Last Friday, we received a call from the school nurse. She wanted to let us know that, although she was sure we already knew how badly Jeffrey had injured his finger, she thought it looked "really bad", and that we might want to "keep an eye on it" when he got home-- and possibly take him to the ER for x-rays. I love school nurses. There is never a need for alarm. Having been rendered numb from regular participation in medical disasters, we let her know in a non-alarming way that we had not actually been informed of any injury to our son prior to this call. Surprised, she elaborated that he had jammed his finger on the way to school somehow and had come to the clinic for ice. He didn’t want to come home however because he wanted to dance the Mexican Hat Dance for the Spanish Heritage Celebration that afternoon. We tried not to be distracted by the fact that Jeffrey is taking French. We thanked her for taking care of him and calling us, and assumed, because it is Jeffrey, that somehow the whole story would no doubt be highly entertaining, and probably involved girls.

The finger, upon arriving home, looked, to quote the nurse "really bad." In my many years of mothering, I have come to identify injuries as being in one of three categories. The first category is "Call 911" which is obviously scary and does not require much thought. The second category involves squinching up your face and saying "Hmmmm—do we need to go to the ER?" The thought process here involves dreading the three to infinity hours of waiting, considering which children would have to come along, and whether or not it would involve having to tell Grandma. The third category is "Get your shoes, grab a book, let’s go!" which means: it looks bad, we have time, and Grandma is asleep. Jeffrey’s finger fell in the latter category, so off we went to Fauquier Hospital-- the noble birthplace of three of our five children, and the place that read Gordon’s neck MRI backwards. Go forward in faith!

As we traveled, the story of the finger incident unfolded. It happened in Seminary actually. Yes, folks, seminary can be dangerous. Friday is game day, and there was a substitute. Well-meaning Sister Graubard, in an effort to spice up the Old Testament, had devised a game sort of like tag, involving Abraham and Satan. I am really not clear on how it all fit together scripturally, I having slept through most of my Old Testament year in seminary, but the important part is that Jeffrey was running away from the devil (Jared Frary—the bishop’s son…isn’t it always the bishop’s kid?) and they tripped over each other and Jared’s knee crushed Jeffrey’s pinky on his left hand. ( a note: Jeffrey is left handed) I guess it made a great object lesson about what happens when you mess with Satan…..

So, arriving at the hospital, we were told by the jovial triage nurse, that if you have a good story, you get seen faster. Ha Ha. Well, we were out of there in 1 hour and 10 minutes! We didn’t even get to read our books! Now we know the secret! When they were taking x-rays of Jeffrey’s finger, I was in the hall, and I overheard the nurses and doctors talking at the desk. "Did you hear the story about the kid who got hurt playing tag with Satan?" they were saying in low tones. You can imagine what a proud moment it was for me to know that my son was the buzz of the ER. Everyone seemed to get a really big kick out of the fact that the last 3 registration numbers on Jeffrey’s hospital bracelet were "666". Can you believe it?

The verdict was that there was a fracture between the knuckles. The medical personnel (I’m not sure any of them were actually real doctors) were very excited to explain that they were able to quickly identify the break because, apparently, we were in the ER the same time last year with a jammed finger on the same hand and had x-rays taken. (that time, Jeffrey had been struck by a girl’s wristwatch while performing a play during lunch for the 6th graders about "How to Avoid being Bullied"—another good story). Anyway, they compared the x-rays, and were able to see right away that there was a difference! I’m telling you, these boys were on the ball! And to think I was worried!

The nurse who set his finger in the splint was a little flaky. She left the top of his finger hanging out of the splint, wrapped the whole swollen and bruised thing good and tight with that horrible plastic tape, and sent us on our way with paperwork that had helpful information such as "Your extremity (finger) is broken. There will be some pain and swelling associated with this type of injury." As soon as we got home, I ripped all of it off and fixed it myself. I have quite an impressive assortment of medical tape that I have acquired over the years and figured I had at least as much medical experience as the flaky nurse. Jeffrey was much more comfortable having his whole finger immobilized and protected with soft tape that was not cutting off his circulation. We also wrapped his head in gauze and put him in some hospital scrubs, gave him a good dose of Ibuprofen, and then dropped him off at a Halloween (costume) party (which did involve girls—as did the Mexican Hat Dance earlier in the day--I told you). So it was all just a big adventure.

We did follow up with an authentic board-certified and licensed orthopedic specialist on Monday. He provided us with a much better splint that looks sort of like one of the fingers of the "Iron Giant". It’s cool. He’ll be good as new in about 3-4 weeks! Now if we could just find a bionic leg for Gordon…