Three weeks ago Mr. Frogman fractured his left arm at a Boy Scout camp out. He came home telling me it was sprained. He had it checked out by a fire fighter. Okay, I thought if it still hurt in a day or two we would make a doctors appointment and have it checked.
He wasn't home from the camp out 2 hours when, while I was working in the yard, he walked out very angrily. He came up to me and stood on one of the large landscaping rocks that embodied one of the beds around a tree in the yard. As he dramatically and emotionally explained to me that Monkey Dude Jr had tackled him and knocked him down to the hard floor where he landed on his arm yet again and telling me how badly it hurt. As he was animatedly trying to tell me his arm motions caused him to lose his balance and fall head over heels onto the ground literally doing a summer sault and then landing face first in the grass.
As he stood up I couldn't help but laugh at the entire front of his body covered in freshly cut grass, leaves and dirt. Mr. Frogman is not a small child. He stands about 5'6" if not a bit taller for a now 12 year old. I couldn't hold back the laugh since I wasn't sure if he was spitting out leaves and dirt (he wasn't actually), he was making a disgusted face and brushing himself off amazingly even angrier. It probably didn't help that mom was laughing. I know laughing wasn't the right thing but it stopped the potential down fall of emotions that would have quickly followed.
Since he had yet again hurt his arm I had to take appropriate action, we iced it down again and of course wrapped it up so that he could keep it still. The next morning he informed me that he needed to go and see the doctor. I was certain his wrist was sprained. He kept telling me that it was broken. I went to work and scheduled a doctors appointment only to be told I would have to take him to get x-rays since our doctors office doesn't have an x-ray machine. Off we went to get x-rays. Scheduled a second appointment with the doctors office to go over the x-rays.
We got into the Dr.'s office at 5:00pm and waited and waited. 2 hours in I asked when we were going to be seen. They informed me that the late evening appointments were on a time basis they would fit us in. I was frustrated by this time having waited this long and having 2 boys becoming more and more rambunctious. I was under the impression that we had a scheduled appointment time. The boys hadn't had dinner and were getting very wiggly. Even our wiggle activities weren't working these boys were ready to run. I finally had to have Wolfman come and get Monkey Dude Jr and pick up some dinner. This brought some relief to the situation. With Monkey Dude Jr gone. Mr. Frogman and I sat down to wait a bit longer to find out the results of the x-rays.
Lo and behold not 5 minutes later we were led into a room to talk to the doctor. The doctor came in and tried to lighten the blow. After Mr. Frogman recounted his story 2-3 times again they finally came out and told me that he had again fractured his arm on the growth plate yet again. So there we sat again joking about it until the doctor walked in again to set his arm in a splint. She looked at me with a glare over Mr. Frogmans head after he was seated in a chair. I truly didn't care. Mr. Frogman was starting to get agitated as it bothered him that he had to be in a splint for 4-6 weeks.
The doctor walked out and asked me to join her in the hall way before she wrapped his arm. She was upset because she didn't feel that I was taking this seriously. I looked at her and suddenly the smile left my face. I looked at her and made it very clear that I took this very seriously. I understood the severity of what was going on. My one statement that shook her was that, "Obviously you know nothing of children with Aspergers and my son. You haven't read his file eigther or you would know that I have to keep him distracted since you didn't read his file. He gets perturbed and agitated under flourescent lighting. You have had him cooped up in 2 different rooms for almost an hour with only flourescent lighting. I have to keep him distracted with humor, since it's easy to make him smile and laugh, or he will start to panic and get angry. Which would you prefer? To wrap an arm of a child smiling or laughing? or to wrap an arm of a child who can't sit still for you? Now you have a choice, you can wrap his arm with our humor and ways of keeping him calm or I can leave you with him in a very serious tone and have you deal with a child who will soon be agitated." The doctor looked at me and then told me she would rather have the humor. I walked back into the room with my son and smiled and asked if he was ready...He asked me, "ready for what?" I looked at him and said they needed him in a body cast and we were going to leave his feet and arm pits exposed. He asked me why. I told him so we could tickle him anytime we wanted and he wouls have to live with it. "Awe Mom, they would never do that," he giggled. "Okay lets get this over with, let's get it wrapped up." He really regretted those words when the doctor told him he had to keep the splint on for 4-6 weeks.
Today Mr. Frogman is counting down the days until the day he can take the splint off and only wear a wrist brace. Tonight before bed he announced only 3 more days left to take this stinking splint off. I am not sure if he was being literal or if he was calling the splint stinking out of spite.
Only a few more days...
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