Uncle!

WANTED

 

KEEPER OF MY FAMILY'S VOODOO DOLLS

 

REWARD

 

$1,000,000 for information leading to the capture of the mean person putting hexes on the Coop family*

 

Do not attempt to apprehend the individual on your own.

 

She is armed (with needles) and dangerous (to our family).

 

Simply sneak away and send me an email.

 

*We don't have a million dollars, but we will gladly pay you Tuesday.  In pork products.

 

******************************************************

 

Guess where I was today.

 

I'll give you a hint.

 

Because you are my friends, I know you are thinking, "Oh no!  Poor Giant!  What happened?"

Soccer, that's what happened.

He played in a tournament this weekend, which included 2 games on Saturday and two games on Sunday.  In the 2nd Saturday game, he and another boy fought for the ball, got their feet tangled, and both went down.  Giant's thumb hit first.

Did that stop him?  Of course not.  He shook it off and kept on playing.

That night, it was a bit swollen, and he wasn't using it much.  I had him ice it and rate the pain.

Because I'm not a doctor.  But I am an idiot who will never learn.

Giant played the two games on Sunday.  In the second, he was taped up thanks to the ER doctor dad who happens to be a friend from the team.  He told us to get the thumb looked at.

Monday morning, I got Giant out of school to go to our new home, OrthoIndy.  From the X-ray room, we went straight to the cast room.  That is what we call a Bad Sign.  With my foot and Buttercup's thumb, we went to an exam room.

Turns out, he not only broke a bone, he knocked his thumb out of alignment.  It no longer lined up with the growth plate. 

They had to realign it.

I had the two little boys with me.  They didn't want them in the room in case Giant didn't do well with the procedure.  WHICH IS PRECISELY WHY I WANTED TO BE IN THE ROOM!!!  They didn't want me in the room in case Giant didn't do well with the procedure, and then I didn't do well with the procedure.

I agreed to go.  If this procedure didn't work, he would be in the operating room to have it fixed.  No one wanted that to happen.

It was quick, but it hurt.

That picture from above was before we knew about fixing the alignment.  The first doctor thought the alignment would fix itself, being that Giant is only 10 and growing fast, so he had the cast put on.  As we were getting the care instructions, we were told the doctor with more experience looked at it and said, no.  It needed to be fixed right now.

The appointment in photos:

Bet you can guess which thumb is the injured thumb.

The first cast.  The little boys were as enthralled as I was.  No Coop family member has ever had a cast before.

After the bad news.  The sawing of the first cast.  Right after this, the doctor pulled me out of the room to talk privately about what was about to go down.  Giant is a smart boy and figured it out.  He asked, point-blank, if it would hurt.  I told him it would.  There is a shot they could give him to numb it, but the shot would hurt just as much.  We were going without the shot.  We'll just say he wasn't happy about that.

I gave him a kiss and a hug, gathered up the boys and their stuff, and walked out of the room.

Both Giant and I were crying.

Within 5 minutes I was retrieved from the waiting room.  In the cast room, there was Giant, lying on his back, arm in the air getting his new cast, eyes red.  I was told he never flinched.   He silently cried and let them fix his finger.

Another X-ray and instructions to come back on June 5 were given.

And then the last, harsh blow.

No soccer until it's healed.  Actually, no physical activity that has the potential for another fall or getting his blood pumping too hard.  (The blood flow to his thumb could mess up the alignment.)

I think this hurt him more than the alignment. 

Normally, when kids break a bone, they just need to wrap the cast in bubble wrap and get back out on the field.  Unfortunately, not for him.  That alignment issue put the kibosh on that.

Aaaaand this weekend is President's Cup, aka State Championships.

Aaaaand the 5th grade goes camping overnight on Thursday.  He can go, but has to sit out of some activities.

Aaaaand next week is the 4th/5th/6th grade Tour de France, when the kids bring their bikes to school and have different competitions during the day.  Can't do that.

The poor kid is quite disappointed, but he's handling it well.

We were there for over three hours, missing school lunch.  Of course he got to play hooky for a while and go wherever he wanted for lunch.

Have no fear.   He's a tough kid.  And we'll come up with some fun things to do when he plays hooky on Tour de France. 

And, that cast is now covered in signatures.

So, let us recap.

Our family has never had an injury requiring an X-ray before 2013.  This year,

January:  Hubby broke his foot and Giant broke his nose.
February:  Buttercup broke her finger.
March:  I had an awful ankle sprain.
April:  I thought we had come through the curse.
May:  Giant breaks his thumb, making it the worst injury yet.

!!!!!!!!FIND THOSE VOODOO DOLLS!!!!!!!!