In an annoying and dramatic twist, our spring '23 plans were disrupted by the unfortunate coincidence of three broken arms.
May 15, bright and early the day after Mother's Day, D and I decided to cycle to his school for bike to school month. Just two days earlier, on a ride to Mercer Island with Becky, my bright pink primary bike spontaneously dropped its derailleur (apparently from prior damage I hadn't noticed, such as bouncing around on our bike rack) so it was in the shop. Therefore, I was riding my white electra cruiser which I had only hung on to because its upright posture makes me and my forearms (which I hurt while biking in 2009) much more patient while riding super-duper slowly with kids on single speed bikes. Dd just learned to ride a pedal bike, so I thought I'd keep my cruiser for one more season.
Jumping back to the ill-fated Monday morning bike ride to school, I was ironically bested by the upright position of this bike's handlebars that spares my forearms from strain while I'm riding slowly. I decided to carry D's lunch bag on my handlebars because neither of us could fit it in our backpacks. On a path through a park, going up a slight incline I wobbled the lunch-bag-laden handlebars, which steer more sensitively than a normal bike, over-corrected and fell off to the left side of the bike.
I remember yelling as I fell, but that was all I had time for. My left arm flew out and I landed on my left elbow with my arm almost extended, fracturing my left shoulder (upper humerus, really). I rolled on to my stomach and then managed to flip to my back, but after that I mostly was thinking about how I did not want to even attempt to move my left arm. D came back down the hill and a passersby offered to call an ambulance and moved my bike off the path. I knew I hadn't hit my head and I was almost unscathed aside from my left arm, so I declined the emergency call. The ride to school is so short that I had almost hadn't brought my phone, but fortunately I had it, so we called Jack and for the second time in three days he brought the car to rescue me and my bike.
You may recall that D broke his left arm in April '22 and it took us an embarrassingly long time get the x-ray that diagnosed a break. That experience inspired me to go to the XR for an X-ray, right after we dropped D off at school. It hurt a lot, obviously, and I was pretty sure something big was wrong. The ER doc said it didn't look broken though, so then I worried that I had ligament damage for the next two weeks until I was able to see a sports med doc who said it did look broken, based on an ultrasound. I had a second set of x-rays and the fracture was confirmed.
I started PT at day 17 and at the 5-week post-injury mark, I started to feel much better. After 6 weeks, I felt okay to drive on the freeway again. Fortunately, I was able to work after a few days by lifting my arm into place on the keyboard.
Derek was the second to break his arm. Memorial Day weekend we had planned a camping trip at Deception Pass and I didn't feel up to going. Crawling around a tent and sleeping on the ground did not sound pleasant. Jack heroically took both kids without me and met up with his cousin and his family. Five minutes after getting out of the car on Friday night, the 29th, the kids took off on their scooters and D almost immediately fell off and caught himself on his outstretched hands. We now know his right forearm was fractured, but again, it took a long time to work that out. He was definitely hurt but it didn't seem that bad. He got back on the scooter, crawled around on rocks at the beach and camped two nights with his fractured arm. It was still swollen when they came home late Sunday afternoon, but it was hard to tell how bad it was.
We were a bit confounded by the fact that D had a slightly elevated temperature (1.5 degrees higher) every evening from Sunday through Wednesday or Thursday and was absolutely wiped out. It wasn't a fever by most definitions, but it was like a switch flipped each evening and he started to feel badly. We didn't want to go to the ER and be grouped with people who probably did have covid and the receptionist at our doctor's office said we couldn't be seen in person because of his temperature. Friday, one week after his injury, when the swelling had gone down enough to see a curve in his right forearm (!!) we ended up with a video appointment and that provider gave us a referral for an x-ray over the weekend. He got his fracture diagnosis in about 9 days.
The doctor recognized that summer is miserable in a cast, so she let him wear a molded plastic brace that he was allowed to wear in a pool and to remove briefly while bathing. He also got to wear a lighter brace while sleeping, which made him much more comfortable.
Lastly, on June 10th my mom fractured her arm while climbing a dicey ladder on to a coast guard ship that allowed the public to come aboard. She slipped and smashed into the hull. Remind me not to get osteoporosis. I don't have as much detail on this one, but she is tough and healed pretty well.
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