Say it Ain’t So…
Again – one thing I have learned about this procedure is that nothing is for sure, and you have no idea how long it will take. We were all getting a little too comfortable with Owen’s situation. Then last week we had two big blows. First, in a meeting with Owen’s teachers, I learned that he’s just not keeping up. Apparently the more then 1/2 the year he missed last year is really impacting him. It just happens that we are actually in the process of moving (just one town over), so we have an opportunity to try and rectify his school situation. Owen will be “regressed” in school to 1st grade. He’s not super excited about it, but I think I got him on “there will be less homework in 1st grade”… um… probably not the best argument, but right now, I’m going with whatever will work.
The bigger blow is that on Sunday, Owen was playing with his friends like he has been for the last two months. They like to play cops and robbers types games between the two houses. Owen was “chasing” (but not running… it’s Owen’s special way of moving fast without running) one of the kids and suddenly he felt something hit his shin. He hopped on his good food to the grass, sat down, and proceeded to scream. I ran down, and realized pretty quickly that something wasn’t right.
We ended up at our local hospital who took x-rays. They determined that there was in fact a stress fracture on his Tibia. They wouldn’t touch him with a 10 foot pole… so they told us to go to Children’s Hospital’s ER for casting the next day. They splinted it and off we went. Awesome.
I have to admit, I thought we were beyond this. I had no idea his legs were still so fragile. I knew he couldn’t jump, or run… but he was just being a kid… playing. Now I wonder just how long we need to hold him back from doing the things kids do.
The cast goes all the way up his thigh. We aren’t flying back down to FL for a fracture… maybe if I was made of money, and wasn’t moving my whole life right now, we would. But for now, we’re going to deal with Boston Children’s hospital for the isolated incident of the fracture and treat it like any other fracture. Luckily, because they do lengthenings, they aren’t afraid of it.
So Owen gets to start a new school on a full leg cast in two weeks! At least for this age, that’s about as cool as you can get. And I guess on a bright note, he’ll make lots of friends quick since he’ll need “helpers” all the time. 
