No Cast

We went to the orthopedic surgeon today, thinking they'd cast Tia's arm. The ER doctor had mentioned that he wanted to give it 3-4 days for the swelling to go down, so we had an appointment today. We got there, and after waiting an hour, which was silly, the surgeon said he needed more x-rays. Fortunately they have a machine in the suite, so it was quick.

At first he was concerned about a dislocation near the end of the bone, which would have been surgery. We sweated that out briefly before he came back to say that it didn't look like a surgical case. When Tia then said her elbow hurt, he sent her back for x-rays up there to check and see if there was a fracture up higher. There wasn't, which was also good.

However it's a good spiral fracture that extends 3 or 4" along the bone. No enough to plate, and it should heal being immobilized, but it will likely be a 6 week time frame. When he looked at the arm, it still was swollen enough that he decided not to cast it today. He cut the underlying cotton wrapping, but left the splint on and then re-wrapped the ace bandage. Monday she goes back for a full arm cast.

He told he that he needed to immobilize it, preventing movement, bending, twisting, etc. of the arm. With a trip scheduled for next week, it will be interesting to see how the cast looks on Monday.