Inari got her spica cast off May 27. Those few weeks after she was taking it slow and didn’t start standing til June 12. Than she was getting back into the groove of walking. It was happy times. She could take baths, thinking about summertime and the swimming she could do. Seeing her start walking around the house again was honestly so awesome.
June 13 Aurora was riding on a quad and had a small accident. She broke her wrist (distal radius). A week after the fracture we finally got in to see an ortho and it was even more displaced. The ortho tech had to cast and put pressure to get the cast in a certain angle so it would heal properly. It was painful and I felt so bad for her. Thankful she didn’t need surgery because I was really nervous of that. She plays violin and her left wrist is very important for her playing.
June 27 while I was doing some dishes, Inari was going around the house and playing. We had told her multiple times to slow down. She fell and her leg was bent back behind her. Unfortunately it was the same femur she previously broke and I was so nervous she rebroke in the same spot. It ended up being a new fracture lower down.
Her last femur fracture she was in A LOT of pain and I was not going to let another doctor send us away without getting appropriate pain medication. The ER doctor said no “she’s too little”. I’m not quite sure what this means, a child is too little to be appropriately medicated for an excruciatingly painful fracture? 🤔 I kept pushing. He asked me what medication like I’m a doctor or something and know what medications can be used?! He stated once in a cast the pain isn’t bad and if it is it’s because the cast is digging in somewhere or there’s something seriously wrong. This can be true but NOT for a femur fx.
The femur is the longest, largest and strongest bone in the human body. When broken they cause very painful muscle spasms. Inari was in so much pain last time for the first 5 days she was ripping clumps of her hair out. Nobody at Greater Niagara General Hospital gave 2 shits last time OR this time. I’d love to see one of these doctors break their femur and only have Motrin and Tylenol for the pain 😏
After refusing any stronger pain relief and waiting over an hour he comes back in saying “you’re getting what you wanted”. He was giving her stronger pain relief so he could splint her and than they where going to send us to McMaster for a spica cast. After giving her pain relief and waiting for it to kick in, he states that she got a good dose and will not be in any pain and that she may act in pain because she knows it’s broken etc….. he tried to start splinting her up and guess what, she was SCREAMING in pain. He stopped and ordered more medicine. Remember though, strong pain relief isn’t needed for small children 🥴
After she was splinted we had to wait for the paperwork to be done to be sent to McMaster children’s hospital. Inari had her very first ambulance ride (mine too). The paramedics gave her a stuffed bear after loading us up. She absolutely loved the bear !!! Once we where all registered at the children’s hospital, I found out the ER doctor at GNGH never told us we’d be spending the night so I had NO supplies or anything with me. This hospital is an hour away from home so it would be a pain to have my husband load up the other kids and come bring us stuff for one night.
The children’s hospital does sedation and spica cast in the OR, not in a back room of the ER like our local hospital… so we spent overnight and had to wait til the next day in the evening for them to get her in to do the cast. The ortho decided to do a long leg cast instead of a spica. I thought he knew best and trusted that. The fracture is closer to the knee and didn’t need a spica was what I was told. He told me there shouldn’t be much pain as this femur fx wasn’t as bad as her last one, but I insisted on pain meds since I didn’t want her in pain like last time. I’m just so thankful this children’s hospital medicated her the entire stay and the ortho sent us home with a few days of pain relief for her.
The first couple days seemed ok for pain management. Thursday evening all of a sudden the pain started to increase. Friday too, but in the evening on Friday she was screaming in so much pain during transfers that it was almost like she rebroke it. We went back to the children’s hospital ER where they did another X-ray and talked to the ortho. ER doctor was told a spica would not help her due to where the fracture was (BS!!!) and they gave us a few more days of pain meds to manage the pain at home.
A spica wraps around the waist and than goes down the entire leg. The leg cannot move around freely in a spica. It’s supported and immobilized. A long leg cast can move around every which way, weighs down on the femur & she could easily rebreak it. The pain she’s having could of been avoided if her femur was supported and immobilized properly. A learning lesson for me that femur fractures need to be in a spica and don’t let any of these local doctors make me think otherwise.
I’m trying to distract and keep Inari busy so that she isn’t moving around too much. Using the stronger pain meds for times she’s in a lot of pain or when we need to go out and transfer her to the car seat.
Our plan going foreword is to hopefully get in to see her bone specialists at Shriners hospital in Montreal. They want to start her on bisphosphonate treatment (zole) and we will talk to one of the doctors there to see if she needs or would benefit from having a rod placed into her femur so that she will stop continuously fracturing it.
