Max's first (of many) injuries

Max broke his left pinky finger on Wed night.  Dan and the boys have been spending hours in the backyard getting ready for flag football evaluations this Tuesday.  Some of our neighbors were over for dinner and then a friendly game of 2 hand touch.  It was 3 kids against 2 dads.  Max was sprinting for the end zone with one of the dads running as fast as he could to catch him!  Max dove for the touchdown and landed right on his finger...he got the touchdown!!  He cried a bit and then decided he was ok to play a little more.  I could tell that he was in pain, but he was trying to be really tough.  The next play, Blake and Max crashed into each other and hurt the finger again!  We aren't sure exactly which collision caused the break because both of them looked bad!  The game ended and the neighbors went home.  We decided to put some ice on it and see what happened in the morning.  It was swelling a bit and turning black and blue.  Max had a horrible night sleep and when he woke up, his finger and hand were really swollen and colored.  We went to see the pediatrician at 9:45 and were sent for x-rays.  He confirmed that there was a break and sent us to the orthopaedic doctor.  They put on a splint and asked us to go to a different office and set up surgery for tomorrow.

The orthopaedic doctor said that there was a break as well as the finger being angled out.  He needed to push the finger back into place and the best way to do that at Max's age is to put him under, push the finger back and put on a cast.  This turned out to be a lot more serious than we thought!!  We were told to be at the office for surgery at 6:45a on Friday morning.  We finally got home from all these appts at 3:30p!

Prepped and ready to go!  We were told the surgery would happen at 7:30a.  Finally, at 8:00 they were ready.  After such a long wait, Max was starting to get a little anxious with various nurses coming in and out asking him the same questions.  When they asked him to come with them, he hopped right up and went.  I was so proud of him! He was asleep with the gas in just a couple mins.  The surgery lasted about 5 mins.  It took him a little while to wake up and grandpa and I were called back to see him.  He was a little tired and his finger hurt a bit, but did great.  Thank goodness that my mom and dad were here to help.  My mom came to the house to stay with Blake and take him to breakfast.  He would not have liked being there!

Max has to rest for at least 24hr and then we go back on Monday to get a waterproof cast.  He is really having a tough time not going out to play today.  It is beautiful outside!  Luckily, he had a surprise visitor come and spend the afternoon with him!  Thanks Layne, you made his day!!

Max is signed up for a soccer camp next week, soccer practice is starting, and flag football evaluations/practice are happening too.  Clyde is coming for a visit and we were hoping to do a lot of swimming also.  Luckily, I think he can at least do that, but will be in a cast for about 4 weeks. Then, we aren't sure how long it will be until he can start up with the sports.   We were all looking forward to the upcoming sports seasons, but know he will be back at it very soon!  I'm sure we will have many more of these accidents!