HUGE 30 hours or so.
Woke up Tuesday morning, and was annoyed (can't use the p word) that the cast had slid half way along his fingers over night. Lucky we were seeing an orthopedic surgeon later that day.
The orthopedic surgeon phone on Tuesday at 13:00 (appointment 16:00), suggesting that he reviewed the X-Rays, and thought that it needed more than th cast the local guys put on, and that our regional hospitals weren't set-up to do the work. Wondered why he'd even been referred to, as he won't touch kids locally for the above reasons.
Casualty called him back in, a different doctor reviewd the X-rays, and saw that the ulna looked good, but the radius had a big kink, and the kink had dislocated the elbow "bulb" from the elbow by quite some way.
He contacted specialist in Sydney (Westmead Children's), who concurred with an emailed version of the rad.
16:00, we were advised that the specialist would look at our son...at 18:00, 135km away.
16:10 we leave, father in law leaves half hour after us.
18:05 we get to triage, and are helped through in under 10 minutes (excellent). Five minutes later, the specialist, while rolling his eyes removes the intact cast from my son's arm, with no cutting.
19:00 more X-Rays
20:00 Full anaesthetic, while they reset the arm. Daughter heads back home with her Grandad.
20:30 Confident that the kink was gone, but unsure of how much knitting had taken place under the faux cast.
21:00 kid asleep in bed.
21:30, hospital realising where we came from, offers us a tiny room with a single bed...for 20 bucks
Also set up a lounge.bed next to the cot (all beds in the kids hospital have them.
06:00, Connor wakes up (like we do here).
08:00, discharge is commencing.
09:00, specialist, still unsure of how much knitting had taken place orders another X-Ray, to set his mind at ease between now and next week's appointment.
09:30, X-rays back, reveal that the bone has rekinked over night, to a lesser degree, but has the elbow pivot rotated and slightly dislocated. Specialist confers with others from other hospitals, and beleive that they can do a better job (for a joint that's got to last another 80 plus years).
11:00, surgery rescheduled for whenever it can be fitted in.
15:30, surgery started.
16:00, complete, but they want to keep him in overnight, as they are worried about swelling with the manipulations and setting procedures that they had to do (fusion was starting, so they had to be a bit less gentle apparently). They X-rayed their work before dropping the anaesthetic in case they had to remove the cast, and got for pins and stuff.
17:00, head home (boss will sleep in the hospital again tonight).
19:10, home to relieve both Grandad, and my Daughter. Play games, and let her work out her worries until 18:00 bedtime.
18:00, crack a beer and a couple cans of vegetable soup (you can't live on bread, cheese, and cold meat for 24 hours, no matter how expensive they are at a hospital cafeteria).
Total bill to the hospital for all of this...$20 for the bed (there's a hostel fund that maintains the rooms).
Spent 6 times that on phones and food.
Tomorrow, head back down to the city and pick them up.
The doctor down there was very impressive, being able to properly explain the mechanics of the failure (impact along the forearm), why the elbow was dislocated, and then demonstrate how the casting method employed both rotated the bulb back into position while reducing the bend in the bone.
If either of my kids is X-rayed with a borken bone again, my fist question is gonne be "referral?"
