Uh oh

So on Saturday (1 March) Joshy fell off the wall around a raised flowerbed, and broke his arm - greenstick fractures to both bones.

Luckily, Rowena's mum was there at the time, and she said that he might have broken it, so we should take him to get checked. When he fell, he cried for a couple of minutes, but nothing more, he was whiny and not using his arm, but not in a great deal of pain at all. And he could still move his arm and all his fingers.

We took him straight to the Sanatorium in Happy Valley. They x-rayed him, and confirmed that at least the radius was broken. We had the option to call the orthopaedic specialist for a $2,000 consultation (it was after hours by this time) or wait till Monday.

We went home, and all slept like logs! Josh slept in my bed, and didn't seem to be in pain (he had had some nurofen). On Sunday morning we decided to call the ortho guy at the Sanatorium and just pay up for the extra charge. We went to the hospital about 9am, and he arrived about 30 minutes later  (they won't call him until you arrive at the hospital). I didn't feel too comfortable with him - he didn't ask any questions or suggest any choices - just said we had to give J a general anesthetic and manipulate the bone before casting it. I wanted a second opinion, so decided to wait.

Here's Josh with Furby, the Froggy class's mascot that we were looking after for the weekend. He had quite an adventure! 

On Monday morning I called the Duchess of Kent Children's Hospital, but they couldn't give us an appointment for 2-3 weeks. So we went to Asia Medical Specialists, who were recommended. We saw Dr Y H Li - a pediatric orthopedic specialist. He was very calm and thoughtful, asked lots of questions, gave us options, and voiced his opinion. He said that actually both bones were broken, and a reduction under GA was one option, or the other was to plaster it straightaway. He said that in kids this young the alignment often corrects itself in 2 years or so anyway, and in any case Josh's misalignment was only around 20% (the arm looks a bit curved to the naked eye). He recommended that course of action, and did the cast right away. Josh had some stuff wound round his arm that looked a bit like bubble wrap, then the doctor wound a bandage on top of this. The bandage was wet, and he shaped it quickly while it was still sticky, then it set rock hard in just a few minutes. Here's J looking very happy with it!

He keeps telling me he loves his cast. He went with Ross to buy a special pink pen so that his friends can write on it. 

I was so relieved  by Dr Li's professionalism and kindness that I almost burst into tears in his office! Awesome, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend him. Not cheap - about 1,500 for the consult, then another 4,000 for the plaster cast procedure and materials.