Not at all humerus

Where to start? Our life as of late has been... chaotic? stressful? depressing? exciting? unstable? I struggle to find a word that really captures the rollercoaster we've been on. Fortunately, things seem to be slowly going back to normal in the last few days, so it's time to begin documenting some of it.

Marla broke her arm on November 21. We picked her up from daycare that day and she refused to crawl, which was very strange. She didn't seem to be in any pain or distress, so we waited it out for the night. When she still wouldn't crawl the following morning, we brought her to our pediatrician, who couldn't find anything of concern in a physical exam except that she didn't want to put any weight on one arm. He ordered an x-ray, which revealed a small fracture in her left humerus, which is the main bone in the upper arm. The doctor was flabbergasted that she could have sustained such an injury without showing any external sign of pain.

We saw an orthopedic pediatrician next, who also marveled at Marla's "stoicism" and apparent ambivalence to any pain in her arm. Because of the location of the break, it didn't need to be casted, but did need to be immobilized as much as possible. Imagine my distress when he prescribed a sling and swathe for our very active 11-month-old. Marla can't sit still for the length of time it takes a digital camera to snap a photo, but she was supposed to keep her arm and shoulder immobile for three weeks? Hardly. Regardless, we had to do our best, so we went to the hospital's orthopedic department for the sling. It turns out they don't make them small enough for a baby, so we were forced to come up with a contraption on our own.

We started with the doctor's suggestion of taping her arm down and putting an extra onesie on to hold it in place. That didn't last long.

Next we tried an ace wrap, but it was a major hassle to unwrap her every time we needed to change her, put her in the car seat, etc.

The winner ended up being some old sleep sacks and hand-me-down swaddlers from my friend Jodi. We cut the bottoms off the swaddlers, wrapped up her left arm, and velcroed the whole ensemble. She didn't love it, but it was tolerable!

We still don't know exactly how Marla broke her arm, but our best guess is that she fell at daycare. The great news is that she has handled all of this beautifully. She has not seemed to be in any pain whatsoever and adjusted very well to having the use of only one arm.

Fortunately, the sling didn't get in the way of her reading.

And she figured out how to get around pretty quickly.



I'm happy to report that last week we got the go-ahead from the doctor to take the sling off and set Marla free once again. He's pleased with the arm's healing and says there should be absolutely no issues with it in the future. It was a long three weeks, but it could have been much, much worse, and our girl took it all in stride. I'm so proud of her!