Mommy/daughter ski day...

A week ago last Sunday Rylan and I went skiing at Copper Mountain Ski Resort.  We left the house at 5:45 a.m. and drove through the early morning darkness, catching only a glimpse of the sunrise as we crested the top of I-70 before it dropped down into the canyon.  It is about a 1 hr 45 min drive up to Dillon/Silverthorn, and another 15 minutes beyond that to Copper.  Rylan loved the sensation of being the only person on the road for a little bit.  I do to.  :)

We got to Silverthorn and pulled off to go to the Mountain Lyon Cafe for breakfast.  Dean and I first went there exactly nine years ago when we spent a weekend in Dillon and it is still as good as ever.

We drove on to Copper and spent the next 30 minutes getting our gear organized and on.  We were in Dean's new car, and it is a tight fit as far as getting dressed!  I am not well-acquainted with Copper, so I was a little mystified as to where to start Rylan out.  This was her third time on skis, and it had been two years since her last stint.  Unfortunately, I made a bad choice.  We hopped on a shuttle to take us to the Center Village so that we could get our lift tickets, and I thought we would just take a lift up to the top of the main green run that runs from the very top all the way to the bottom, and we would just make our way down.  Umm.. not such a good idea.

  

Here we are, we made it off the lift in one piece, and I was able to drag her to this spot.  A very nice lady took our photo.  Then we turned around and headed down the run.  We made it about 10 ft and Rylan went off the side just behind us, down a steep shortcut that led to a double black diamond.  Sigh.  I had to take off my skis, hike down to her, toss her skis back up to our run, and boost her up the side.  We got our skis back on, made it another 10 feet and then another major fall.  Rinse and repeat about another 50 times, over the course of the next TWO AND A HALF HOURS.  Then we finally made it to the bottom of that run.  Never in my life did I think it would be so difficult for her - and neither did she.  I think she was very frustrated with herself, and it was annoying her to no end that other little kids were zipping right past her.

Rylan has had two and a half years of karate, plus almost two years of dance...and yet this kids still struggles with body-awareness.  She struggled with which foot to put her weight on, which way to lean, how to transfer her weight, how to lean into the mountain, yet lean forward as well..  It really is a lot to take in, and I am seriously kicking myself for not getting her on the gradual bunny slope first thing.  Trouble is, I had no idea where it was located.  I studied the hell out of the map as we sat and ate lunch after finishing that long, horrible run, and finally found it tucked away in a glade between the black section and blue section of the resort.  Stupid place for a bunny slope, if you ask me...

So, after a late lunch we got on a bus and after getting off at the wrong spot, getting on again and hiking over a meadow with our heavy skis, we made it to the bunny slope and Rylan got to master getting on/off the ski lift and got in some good practice with turns.  She ended the day on a very happy note, much to my relief. I would feel terrible if this day turned her off to skiing.  She sported a very nasty bruise on her hip, and her muscles ached for a couple days from all of the snow-plowing, but she recovered quickly!  Here she is on her last run..

I was just fine, but I really should have put my orthotics in my ski boots because my feet - especially my left - were barking by the end of the day.  I could barely put weight on it.  I also had to do a lot of getting up and down from a sitting position while still in my skis as I helped Rylan get in and out of her ski bindings, and a lot of pulling her up and so on... my shoulder really took a beating - I am not as recovered from that surgery as I thought!  No falls on my part, so that is a good thing - but I also didn't really 'ski', as I was working with Rylan the whole time.  That was a bit of a bummer, because the snow was freakin' fantastic!!!!!

I love my girl for not giving up, and for staying as positive as she could, all things considered.  She is not a quitter, that's for sure!!  I also loved bonding with her over pancakes and cocoa during breakfast and music during our long drive up and back.  She loves alternative rock as much as I do!

A boy gets a cast on his leg

 

Colin went to visit the orthopaedist today, and he came home with leg cast that will be his close and personal friend for the next three weeks. I don't feel 100% comfortable with the diagnosis since the doctor spent half a nanosecond looking at his x-ray, but then again the doctor is the expert, right?

Since the Urgent Care clinic is connected to our hospital, they could pull up his x-ray in the computer system immediately, and display it on a large wall monitor. I think that is just the coolest...I'm of the opinion that every doctor should be connected to a network, and that every teeny tiny scrap of your medical history should be accessible in a database, so that the information a doctor has is as up-to-date as it gets... Anyway.. Off track here... So he glanced at the x-ray and said it was an easy fix - just put him in an above-the-knee cast for three weeks and he should be just fine. He was not concerned about the growth plate at all. I guess I should feel relieved, but I feel a little apprehensive..

So Colin got a cast put on his leg. First the nurse removed the rest of his splint (pictured above, courtesy of photographer Colin), then put on a long 'sock', wrapped his leg in some kind of squishy material - similar to that thin packing material you use to wrap fragile stuff in, and then used a wrap that hardens within minutes. Colin was not exactly the best patient...he was pretty squirmy. The nurse gave Colin a Batman action figure that had an exact replica of the type of leg cast he was getting.

Batman helped Colin control his wiggles somewhat, but then Colin was still wiggling as he played with Batman. There were other characters, so out came Spider-Man in his leg cast, Darth Vader in his arm cast, along with Captain America. Luckily these two 'broke' their left arms, so they could still fight each other right-handed. :). We all tried in our best Darth Vader voices to amuse Colin...

"Colin...(Vader breath)...I am your father..."

Colin had about 15 color and design choices for his cast, and so he immediately chose 'safety orange'. A very appropriate choice for this boy! Dean tried to steer him towards OU red, of course. The casting from start to finish took under 15 minutes (!), and we were done. It is a waterproof cast, so he can shower, bathe, SWIM...and it is supposed to dry out in about an hour. I don't think we will attempt the swimming thing (he would sink like a rock) but it is good to know I don't have to give him a sponge bath for the next three weeks.

All afternoon Colin got increasingly mobile, hobbling all around. You can hear his cast scrape along the floor, so I can tell when he is moving around, which is nice. I can't believe he is already putting weight on it, but apparently it doesn't seem to bother him because he didn't complain of pain even once all day. Tough kid!

 

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A boy breaks his leg...

If there ever was one of our kids to end up in the ER, it would be Colin.  He's the rough-and-tumble one.  I can't remember a time when he didn't have a bruise somewhere...  I just always assumed that regular trips to the ER would be the norm for this kid.  I am completely amazed that it took him four years to finally make that happen.

Just a couple of days ago, on Wednesday afternoon, Colin broke his leg jumping on the trampoline.  I was upstairs, pulling laundry from the dryer.  Dean was downstairs, working on the computer.  Dean happened to be home that day, as he was feeling like crap that morning and decided to call in sick.  As the day went on he felt better, so he was getting some work done from home.  I had just come from downstairs, and I had noticed in passing that the neighbor and his kids were jumping on their trampoline.  I heard the bustle of Jordan and Colin going outside to do the same thing.  Within a minute there was yelling and screaming coming from our side of the fence.  I hollered down to Dean to go tell Jordan and Colin to be quiet so that they wouldn't annoy the neighbor who was outside enjoying some time with his kids.  Then I heard Dean come in with a sobbing Colin and he brought him upstairs.  I came out of our closet where I had been putting the laundry away, and there was Colin, laying down on the floor and Dean looking him over.

Now, I am the kind of mom that is the wait-and-see type when it comes to injury.  99% of the time it is not as bad as our four little drama queens make it out to be.  I am hard-pressed to even dispense a band aid.  There has be BLOOD...LOTS of it.  This time around I was skeptical.  There was nothing outwardly wrong to suggest that there was an injury to Colin's leg, except the fact that Colin refused to put any weight on his leg and seemed to be in a lot of pain.  I manipulated all of his joints in both legs, there was no swelling, and he couldn't point out the exact location..he just indicated the entire left side of his body, which isn't exactly specific.  As time went on the area under his left knee grew warm, so we figured that was where the fracture likely was.  (Well, we didn't know it was a fracture, but all signs were pointing that way..)

Given the fact that he refused to bear weight, Dean thought it best that we go to Urgent Care.  Now, in the meantime, Jordan completely lost it.  It was basically his fault.  He had jumped hard on the trampoline, in order to bounce Colin really high.  It was intentional, but totally meant in the spirit of fun.  The kids like it when he does that.  We were kids once too, and we both remember that it was fun to bounce kinda crazy like that.  The problem is, Jordan can't quite regulate his quest for fun with keeping things safe.  We've warned him a thousand times that Colin and Owen are too small to bounce really hard like that, and to keep it in check.  He forgets...  So, as it became apparent that it was serious, Jordan just lost it and started bawling because he felt so bad.  Even at 13 going on 14, Jordan is a sensitive kid, and he wears his heart on his sleeve.  So, we asked him to pull it together and hold down the fort while Dean and I took Colin to get checked out.

The exam was pretty quick and routine.  Colin was not happy to be there, and refused to talk to any of the doctors or nurses.  He wouldn't even accept a popsicle from the doc - I had to be the go-between.  He had a couple of x-rays done, and sure enough, there was a small fracture line at the top of his tibia.  The doctor placed his leg in a splint and wrapped it up and sent us home.  Nothing could be done, casting-wise, until the swelling went down.  Of which there really was none, but whatever...

Since the splint goes up the back of his leg and up past his knee just a bit, Colin can not bend his leg.  So getting him home, strapped in the car seat was an issue at first.  Luckily we had a spare fleece blanket, and so we devised a long sling to suspend his leg.  We used the handle that is just above his seat to tie the blanket to and adjusted the height so that his leg was at just the right angle - it actually worked pretty well!

So for the past day and a half, Colin has been either on the couch or in bed.  We have to carry him everywhere, so bathroom trips are the most difficult thing right now.  His leg has to stick straight out, so I have to prop it up on my knee while he sits down and does his business.  His siblings have been kind enough to bring various toys to him and take turns playing with him on the couch, but I can tell this will get old, very quickly.  I think reality set in for him a bit yesterday, when he asked if he could go outside and play in the sandbox with his trucks.  'No'.  Jump on the trampoline?  'Are you serious?  No.'  Ride his bike?  'Uh...no'  This kid is a constant mover.  So the upside is that we will now know where Colin is at all times.  The downside is that Colin won't be happy about that.  At all.

Today we are going to the orthopaedic center - the same place I had my shoulder surgery done - to see a specialist.  Unfortunately the pediatric guy was booked solid, so Colin will be seeing a 'bone specialist' instead.  This is probably a good thing, because the fracture line is awfully close to the growth plate at the top of the tibia, and this could lead to some serious problems as Colin grows - like uneven bone length kind of stuff...  We'll know more in a few hours.

Not happy to be here...  "Stop lookin' at me!!"

Daddy helps with the popsicle

He looks happy here.  Which totally does not make sense.

A close up of his x-ray.  The length of the fracture is hard to determine here.  The top of the tibia is called the metaphysis.  The gap is the epyphyseal plate (growth plate) which is filled with epyphyseal cartilage, and the smaller section above is called the epiphysis.  The metaphysis and epiphysis eventually fuse together, and ossify, in the late teens.  The growth plate is where new bone growth takes place.  The further you travel down the bone shaft, away from the growth plate, the harder and more mature the bone.  Fractures in young children often take place at the ends of  long bones, where the bone is very fragile still.  Fractures in this area are problematic because they can interfere with the growth plate doing it's job in producing new bone.