Friday, September 18th was the Homecoming game at Snow Canyon High School. We like going to the games so we decided to take the kids and have dinner at the game. Ethan wasn't too interested in going but we bribed him with hotdogs and he was happy to go and spend time with his friends.
We got the game, sat in our usual seats and then got dinner. Actually, Courtney left to play with friends the minute we got to the game. She and Ethan went to get something to eat and then Ethan came back to sit by us while he ate his food. The game was going well but I could tell Ethan was pretty bored. I told him he could go hang out with his friends and he took off with some kids from the neighborhood.
Now, I need to explain a bit about how games at Snow Canyon go. To the west of the high school is a large field area. The south part of the area are the softball/baseball fields. To the north of those fields is an empty field where kids play football while the Snow Canyon games are going on. To the north of that grassy field is a fence and on the other side of the fence is the football complex with the field, bathrooms, concessions and stands. The middle school kids hang out near the bathrooms and talk or they go to the field by the softball field and play football. The field is where Ethan was during the Homecoming game.
Ethan and his friends were playing football with some other boys from the middle school. Ethan had been on one team but they didn't know him and so they weren't throwing the ball to him. He switched teams so he could be with all his friends and they started throwing the ball to him. He had made 2 touchdowns and was feeling pretty good about himself.
During one play a pass was thrown to Ethan, he caught it and took off for the end zone. Before he scored a kid came from behind him and tackled him down low....breaking his leg. Ethan said that he yelled and play immediately stopped because EVERYONE around heard his leg break. One of his friends, who was across the field, said he heard it break.
Meanwhile, Bryan and I are sitting in the stands watching the game and minding our own business when we hear the announcer (who is in our ward) say "Will Ethan Pack's parents please come to the announcer's booth." I knew something was wrong. I got up and started to go to the booth when my phone rang and it was Ethan. He said "Mom, I broke my leg. Can you come find me?' I told him we would, motioned to Bryan and we took off for the announcer's booth. When we got to the booth there were 3 girls there. Kenny (the announcer) said "These girls said that Ethan broke his leg. They'll show you where he is." The girls took off with us following behind them.
We got over to the field where Ethan was lying on the ground with kids around him and police officer. They asked if we were his parents and we said we were. Ethan was in a lot of pain and felt horrible. The EMTs from the game came over to help and quickly saw that his left shin looked broken. They asked what we wanted to do. Bryan ran to get our van so we could take Ethan to the hospital. But after seeing how much pain Ethan was in, we decided to have an ambulance take him instead. They asked him what his pain level was on a scale of 1-10 and he kept saying "is 10 as high as it goes?" Poor kid was in so much pain but he didn't want to look like a wimp.
There were buses parked all over and the ambulance had a hard time getting to the field where Ethan was so they kept having to ask people to move their cars. Meanwhile, many of our friends, including our home teacher, had come over to see if they could help. One of the neighbor boys ran to find Courtney, another family offered to take care of her while we went to the hospital, another friend tried to cheer Ethan up by telling him that Snow Canyon was doing well to which he responded "No offense, but right now I don't care." He was doing great but he started to go into shock and was shaking. It was not a fun experience.
Bryan and our home teacher gave him a blessing and then the ambulance workers splinted his leg, put in an IV (using flashlights while he laid on the grass field) and then loaded him into the ambulance. Ethan commented that it looked like a parade with all the kids following behind the stretcher as they loaded him into the ambulance.
I rode with Ethan while Bryan followed behind. I thought they would give him pain medication while in the ambulance but when we got to the hospital (after a very bumpy ambulance ride!) the EMT said that Ethan was a tough kid because he was refusing pain meds.
While on the way to the hospital, I had friends texting me constantly. I had texted my parents to ask them to go to our house to take care of Courtney so they were on their way. One friend texted me to see if she could help us get a good orthopedic doctor to check Ethan out. She works at the hospital in physical therapy and knows how important it is to have a good doctor. I told her we would love to have her help so she texted Dr. Leitze to see if he was available. He was at a Desert Hills football game in Hurricane so he agreed to stop by after the game to work on Ethan. We didn't know at that point if he needed surgery or not but we wanted the best doctor working on him.
Once in the ER they asked Ethan how he broke his leg and then they took x-rays. Right before the x-rays Ethan agreed to have some pain medication. They gave him morphine and he was much happier after that. He told me later that he didn't get medication because in the ER he saw a woman hooked up to all kinds of machines and thought that his broken leg wasn't anything compared to what she was going through. He also didn't want to be seen as a wimp. Crazy kid!
Here's what they found when they looked at the x-ray:
He broke his tibia and had smaller fractures going downward toward his ankle and then up from his ankle. Pretty nasty! Dr. Leitze said that it wouldn't help to have surgery and that a cast was the best approach for this kind of break. They asked Ethan what color of cast he wanted. The choices were pink, blue or red. He said "pink" but we quickly asked him if he didn't think it would be better to have it be blue. So he changed his mind to blue.
They had to manipulate his leg quite a bit to get in back into place before they could cast it and the best way to do that was under some light anesthesia. He wouldn't need breathing help and he would wake up quickly from it so we agreed that would be best. They asked us to leave the room while they worked on him. We went out into the waiting room while they manipulated, x-rayed and casted poor Ethan's leg.
After what seemed like forever, they told us they were finished and we could go back into see him. When we got there, he was still asleep (which wasn't a surprise because it was way past bedtime and he was drugged up) and he had a HUGE blue and pink cast going from his toes to his hip. I couldn't believe it! Poor kid. The doctor explained that Ethan did great but that his leg was so long that they had run out of blue so they had to finish up with pink. (If you look behind his knee you also see that they had to use red too.)
The nurse told us that Ethan could go home after he had opened his eyes and lifted his head. We waited for a while and then Bryan talked to Ethan to see if he was awake. He was in and out of it and asked us where the dog went that had been licking him. We got a laugh out of that one. When Bryan told Ethan that we could go home after he opened his eyes, Ethan's eyes popped right open. He also lifted his head so we were ready to go.
They gave us crutches, wheeled Ethan out to the van and then we had to figure out how to get him into the backseat. It was interesting to say the least and I was very glad he was still drugged up. We stopped to get his pain medication at a pharmacy that was open until midnight (it was 11:55 when we got there) and then we got him home. We couldn't figure out how to get him in the house because he was drugged up and couldn't figure out how to use the crutches so Bryan picked him up and carried him to his room. That was amazing because that cast weighs a ton!!
Ethan had a great sleep but woke up in pain. He took a pain pill but said it didn't help the pain so he didn't take any more.
On Saturday, we had a ton of people call, text and drop by to see him. Our neighborhood is amazing! One family brought him a 12 pack of Rootbeer and some candy. Another family brought him a 12 pack of Sprite and some balloons. Another family brought him some candy and a Sprite. My parents brought him candy and balloons. Our home teacher brought him some cookies in the shape of footballs (haha). And other friends brought him things. He really appreciated all they did for him.
Sunday morning Ethan woke up and his foot felt weird. The hospital told us to really watch for swelling in his toes so we did for the first day but then we thought he would be fine. But Sunday morning was really driving him nuts. I texted the doctor who said to have Ethan to his office ASAP so he could loosen the cast (he had to teach a class at 10:15-11, haha). So Bryan took him over while Courtney and I went to church. The swelling was making Ethan's cast too tight so the doctor cut a slit in both sides from the knee to the toe so there would be more room. Ethan felt so much better after that. Later in the day the doctor texted to see how he was doing.
Ethan stayed home from school on Monday but I went in to the school to meet with the principal to set up everything Ethan would need when he got back. The administration/teachers were so nice and ready to help Ethan. They gave him a tardy pass so he could take extra time getting to classes. They agreed to let him out of class early so he could get places easier. And his teachers were going to make adjustments so he could fit in a desk. We borrowed a wheelchair from Uncle Don for Ethan to use and the principal asked one of Ethan's friends to push him around to his classes.
Tuesday morning Ethan went back to school. He had an okay day but was still in pain and he was really tired. We had parent/teacher conferences that night so it was great to talk to his teachers and make sure everything was set up for him. He is in PE so we had to try and figure that out. They were going to switch him to weight lifting so he could keep up his core muscles while in the wheelchair, but so far nothing has changed.
Ethan used the wheelchair for the first week but then he switched to crutches because everyone kept trying to push him around when he didn't want to be pushed. He got a bit annoyed. Now he uses his crutches and is doing well. Once-in-a-while he will be adventurous and ride the bus home but he is usually exhausted afterward.
It's been three weeks now and he isn't in too much pain. The plan is to have him in the long cast for 5-6 weeks (we go back at 5 weeks for another x-ray to see how he is healing) and then they will put him in a shorter cast (hopefully a walking cast) for another 5-6 weeks. If things go well, Ethan will be out of his casts by Christmas.
This has been a real learning experience for Ethan. He hates being in the spotlight and having everyone know who he is. The first few days everyone would talk about him and point at the "kid in the wheelchair" and he hated it. But I think everyone has gotten used to him being on crutches. The kids are still really helpful though. And he is building up his shoulder muscles which will help with swimming when he can finally swim again.
So he is doing well.
