A tale of two casts

Thursday, 8:45pm at a restaurant in Portugal, my cell phone rings:

Me:  Hello?

Jeff (3:45pm, Burke, Va):  We're at urgent care.  Sam fell.  Off the monkey bars.  She hurt her elbow.

Me, thinking to myself, couldn't you have led with "Sam's ok, but hurt her elbow falling off the monkey bars." ?   Seriously, in the 2 second pause between each sentence, I envisioned the worse and already had myself on a plane flying back to be by her side.  Once I was able to breathe again;  

Me:  Is it broken?

Jeff:  No, I don't think so.  I got a call to get her early from school and get an xray.  We're waiting now at urgent care for the xray.

Me:  Ok, call me when you find out anything.

And with that, Sam ended up in a sling with her arm wrapped until we could get her into a specialist.  Jeff made the appointment for that coming Monday and took her to see an orthopedist.   The doctor wanted a different view of her elbow than what urgent care x-rayed and redid the pictures.  It was a very minor break (contusion) and a cast was recommended to protect her elbow from any additional damage while it was healing.  Sam picked the color purple for her cast.  She was all smiles during the visit.

We set a record for this orthopedic office in needing a new cast.  Within 24 hours we were back and asking for the purple one to be removed and a new one put on.  And it wasn't because Sam wanted to match her outfit that day.  (Although, I could totally see this happening).  It was because I messed up!  I thought we had a good system for helping Sam bathe and keeping her cast dry, but it was a disaster.  Sam was miserable with the inside of her cast being wet.   This time Sam went with the color pink.

One week later, at 7:50am on Tuesday morning, the cast came off and a new set of x-rays were done.  Sam's elbow had healed and she was good to go.  She was even given the green light to return to gymnastics that evening.  And Sam made it to school on time!  Wow.  How fortunate this whole ordeal lasted less than 2 weeks.  We now have Sam's cast a souvenir. 

Sam was a big hit in her class.  Being the first kid in her class to have a cast on, everyone wanted to sign it and ask her what it was like to wear one. 

Look, no more cast!