Snap
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
Isaiah 55-8
We were warned. A
year after the rod surgery, Evan was back in Dr. Rinsky’s care for a minor
surgery. The lower part of one of the stainless steel rods was poking at Evan’s
skin.
I asked, “So,
you’re going to go in there with a hacksaw and trim the rod?”
“Oh no, we’re much
more high tech than that.” He sounded insulted.
That we could joke
about it shows how minor a surgery it was. And in fact, it was. Evan’s recovery
was very fast. As Evan was being discharged, Dr. Rinsky had some final words.
“He’s healing very well. After the spinal fusion, there’s really
nothing more I can do for him. But I must warn you, he’s getting to the age
when kids like him start to break bones.”
Evan was sixteen
when it happened. While he was putting on his shoes, he heard a snap.
Evan said, “Mom, I
heard a snap.”
Cindy examined the
leg. A snap could mean a broken bone. We had false alarms before, but you could
never be too sure. There was no redness or swelling that would be expected with
a broken bone. But Evan said he heard something, so she called Dr. Bravo. Since
there were no symptoms for a break, Dr. Bravo concluded that Evan was good to
go.
That was great news for Evan. He had big
plans that day. This was “Super Saturday” for the Santa Maria Stake. The LDS
young men and young women from the Santa Maria area performed a service
activity at the YMCA in Santa Maria. The
service activity was followed by swimming in the YMCA pool. I helped him in and
out of the pool without noticing anything wrong with his legs. Afterwards,
there was a dinner and a dance.
Around midnight, as
Cindy was helping get Evan settled into bed, she felt the upper leg bone
moving. We wanted to be wrong, but it looked like Evan had been wheeling around
all day with a broken femur. Two hours later, an Emergency Room doctor and we
were looking at an x-ray of Evan’s right femur. Or, I should say, we were
looking at two parts of his femur, the upper part and the lower part. It was a
clean break. Why there never was any swelling or redness remains a mystery.
We were told that Sierra
Vista Hospital didn’t have the capability of dealing with a break like this
with a child like Evan. We were advised to go home, get some sleep, and drive
north for four hours to Stanford’s Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital.
Several hours
later, we were trying to explain to the Emergency Room personnel at Lucille
Packard Children’s Hospital why we were there. This seemed like a no brainer.
He had a broken femur. Sierra Vista wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot pole and
they didn’t have any eleven foot poles. Surely, Lucille Packard would admit
him, pin his femur back together and help him get well. After what seemed a
long time, Evan was admitted. We signed our permission for a leg operation and
then waited for the next day.
Dr. Rinsky was
called in to take a look at Evan and the x-ray. He shook his head and said, “You’re
not going to like what I’m about to say, but were not going to do anything with
this.”
“What?” we
exclaimed.
Assured of our full
attention, Dr. Rinsky explained, “Yes, we could go in and pin it, and put his
leg in a cast, but the bone will only break again. We will keep his leg
immobilized by a pillow splint. If the leg is properly immobilized with the two
parts together, the bone will eventually grow back together. It will not grow
back straight, but that doesn’t matter. Evan is not ambulatory, so no weight is
ever put on the leg.”
They used ordinary
pillows in the pillow splint. While keeping him for another day, we were
trained on transferring Evan and changing the pillow splint.
Then we were sent
home. While I was at work, Cindy was the one to change the pillows and do most
of the moving. She could still feel the bones moving.
She called Dr. Rinsky
and asked, “Are you sure this is the right thing to do?”
“Yes,” was the
reply, “His leg will heal. Trust me.”
After a few weeks
in this pillow splint, Evan’s right femur did indeed mend. Evan still dresses
himself, but we put his shoes on.
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