A lot of people have asked if we took any pictures of Chandler's fingers. We didn't get any of the wounds but these are of the stitches a few days after the accident.

He got his stitches out on Monday, April 16th. They had told us that if kept them really moist with antibiotic ointment and wrapped up, his scaring would be greatly minimized. It's a good trick to know because they look really good, and so far he doesn't have a single upraised gnarly scar like both the ER doc and our family doc said he would. He thought it was pretty cool the next day when he showered because it was the first time those fingers had had a bath and one whole layer of skin came off and had stitch marks all around it. It was only being held on by the stitches and as soon as it got a little washing it came right off. Here is a picture of his fingers now. They are looking really good. Now, he is having to work with them to get them to work right but already he has a lot more movement in them and he has feeling in both of them.

OUR CONTINUED SAGA.........

The next day, Tuesday, April 17 at about 4:30 in the afternoon, I was making to dinner and talking to Jon on the phone when Trenton came in and told Chris was hurt real bad on the tramp and that he needed me bad. I went out to the tramp and found him lying on his stomach on it and his leg was legging on the tramp, visibly not in a normal position. As I was walking out to the tramp he said he thought he broke it because he heard two loud pops and it hurts really bad and he can't move it. By the looks of it I knew it was true.

Chandler was in his room doing homework and had beat me to the tramp when he heard what Trent had said. He was already running back to get me when I came out. As soon as I said that I thought he had broke his leg, Chandler just turned into a pile of goo. He had his hands covering his mouth and he was bawling to beat the band. I couldn't believe it after all he'd just been through himself. I had to holler at him to get a hold of himself and go get me our doctors magnet off the side of the frig, which he was able to do after two trys. I had the phone with me and had already called Jon back and when I called our doctor to see if I could just go there instead of the ER, Jon was already on the phone with him.

I drove the little truck (all I had because the van was in the shop) through the yard and right next to the tramp. He and I slid him to the edge of the tramp and he stood on his good leg while I carried his bad leg and were able to slide him into the truck. He had to slide across the seat so far to rest his leg on the edge, that I barely fit in.

Our doctor is a friend of ours and he waited for us at his office. Our friends Susan and Eric came over because Eric was going to help me lift him into the truck. I left and they got Trent ready for his T-Ball game (which was thankfully cancelled).

Jon met us at at the doctors office and after the X-rays he and Aaron (our doctor) gave Chris a blessing. Looking at the X-rays he knew we could have to take him to an orthopaedist so he cotton wrapped it, fashioned a splint out of casting material, and wrapped it up and sent us home. He called an orthopaedist he liked and he gave us a number to call if it got real bad through the night, otherwise we were to go see him in the morning. We were lucky because Chris had the next day off of school. He wasn't so lucky though because he had a lot of plans, none of which included the amount of pain or doctors visits that he had.

He had a really, really bad night. He could not get comfortable and we just could not get a handle on the pain. Finally, sometime after 1:00 Am he was finally able to sleep a little bit and by 6:00 he was sleeping pretty good and the pain had finally gotten manageable. Then at about 9:oo he got up to go to the bathroom and get ready to go to the orthopaedist and it started all over again. He ended up not getting in until 12:00 and all morning the pain was awful again. He got a dose of pain meds at 11:30 and between that and putting his leg down on the way to the appointment he felt a lot better, saying even that the pain was completely gone. After the doc saw the X-rays, we had to go to the hospital for a CT scan. Chris did fine all day, and even asked the doctor if he could go to mutual. The doctor said he could do mutual and school and anything else he was able to stand but that he should be able to put his leg up in whatever he did.

So he went to Mutual and did fine. He was planning to go to school today until one of his came over with a card and visited him. As she left, he walked her to the door and coming back into the family room, his crutch slipped and he automatically put that foot down and the pain started all over again. He cryed and cryed and again, couldn't get comfortable. The excruciating pain lasted until about 1:00 again, and then he was only able to drift in and out of sleep again until about 4:30. He had to sleep sitting up and was pretty sore everywhere this morning. After his early morning pain meds he seems to be back on top of the bad pain, but is still really struggling to find a comfortable position. He's really just so tired, he wants to sleep and he just can't do it.

In the end, here is the story. He broke his fibula (the big bone) and his tibia (the smaller bone) in his right leg. The fibula is fractured just above the ankle and the tibia is fractured, displaced a centimeter and broken through the growth plate and joint in his ankle. He has to have surgery on it, which will be Monday the 23rd at 11:30 am. I hope he gets to where he is managing the pain better or Monday might seem like eons away. I'm quite anxious about the growth plate and what that means. He's been growing like crazy lately and I hope they can take care of it enough to not have any long term problems.

Here are some pictures of him in our family doctors office. The leg never looked bad at all before he wrapped it. It had one little bump or swell on the outside just above the ankle and that was all you could see. It has not been unwrapped since so we don't know what it looks like. If you know what you're looking at you can see the displaced tibia on the X-Ray.