Three X-Rays and a Bright Red Cast

I start this blog by admitting my epic blogging failure. As 2023 dawned, my plan was to take a day off from work each month and dedicate it specifically to blog writing. I was hoping to write at least one blog a month. I had all these ideas swirling in my head that I wanted to take the time to write about. Well, that plan crashed and burned before take off. As is often the case, real life intervened. Here we are almost into June and I’m writing my first blog of the year. Oh well, better a late start than no start at all.

One of the main reasons for my lack of blogging progress this year is because life has been exhausting on the Owen front. Actually, the added stress began last summer when I got a call from one of Owen’s doctors sharing the results of a recent hip x-ray Owen had done. It all stared innocently enough with a visit to Owen’s PM&R physician. This stands for physical medicine and rehab for those who are not familiar with the acronym. This is someone we added to our repertoire years ago, first for botox shots to deal with Owen’s spasticity and drooling issues. She’s the one we turn to for Owen’s orthotics and when he needs to be fitted for a new wheelchair, among other things. At a visit we had with her last summer, she recommended getting a hip x-ray simply as a baseline to see how Owen’s bones were doing. We learned years ago that Owen is at a higher risk for bone issues due to the medications he takes and because he’s non weight bearing. She didn’t think there was a big hurry to do this, but I decided we should tackle it right away, mainly so I wouldn’t forget to do it. As a working mom with a kid that adds a lot of moving parts to my day, I thought it best to tackle this while it was still fresh in my head. Besides, I had vacation time coming up, and that is usually what vacation time is for; to get my to do list tackled.

So, I immediately make the appointment and we went for the hip x-ray. I felt a great sense of accomplishment checking that off my list and didn’t give it a second thought, until receiving a call from Owen’s doctor shortly after the x-ray was taken. I’ve learned it’s never a good sign when a doctor calls you to deliver test results, and this time was no exception. Apparently the results of the x-ray even shocked her. Owen had osteoporosis. She said she was surprised he hadn’t already suffered a fracture. She said she was going to refer us to our local children’s hospital to have Owen evaluated by a physician who specialized in treating kids with osteoporosis.

Three months later, we saw the bone specialist. While our doctor seemed really alarmed at the x-ray results, the bone specialist didn’t seem overly concerned. She explained the treatment involved and also stated that normally they didn’t begin treatment until the child suffered a fracture. Well, that seemed kind of extreme to me. Wouldn’t you want to avoid it from happening in the first place? Despite this comment, she said enough things that reassured me that starting treatment for this wasn’t something we needed to do immediately. Owen is already on a lot of medication, and if we could avoid more at this time, I was good with that. The plan was to see her in a year to assess how he was doing at that time.

Fast forward to late January of this year. Most late afternoons during the week, you will find Owen and me in the basement of our home. I finish my work day in my home office after picking Owen up from school. He spends that time playing and watching TV. Just before signing off for the day, I checked on Owen and he was slumped over one of his toys taking a little siesta. This is not unusual for him. Sometimes a man needs a little break from playing for a quick cat nap, especially on a cold, dreary January day. Once I finish my work day, Owen and I will go upstairs to the main level of our home to begin our evening routine. While Owen can’t walk, he can bear weight on his legs, which is a great help to me in moving him around. On this night, however, he refused to put any weight on his leg. Since he was tired and he is a teenager, I just thought he was being difficult. The next morning, however, the same thing happened; he would not put any weight on his legs. Thinking back to the night before, I recalled he wasn’t scooting around on the floor as much as he normally would – which is how he gets from one place to another – so I became concerned that his lack of weight bearing was more of an issue and not just him being an ornery teenager. We called our PM&R physician for an appointment to see if she could figure out what was going on.

Because of his unwillingness to scoot, his doctor thought he had a hip issue and sent us for a hip x-ray. The x-ray confirmed that his left hip bone was about 50% displaced and referred us to see an orthopedist. But wait, there’s more! A few days later, before we even had an appointment with the orthopedist, I noticed that Owen’s right ankle was bruised. I shared this with his PM&R physician, and back we went for another x-ray, this time for his right lower leg. The x-ray results confirmed a broken bone in Owen’s leg. A day or two after the fracture was confirmed, we were at the orthopedist’s office getting a bright red cast put on Owen’s leg and adding a new doctor to our ever growing team of specialists.

We learned many things as a result of the broken bone incident of 2023. We learned, or rather it was reaffirmed, that it sucks to have a kid who is non verbal. While he broke the bone on my watch, I have no idea how it happened or even when it happened. I know it had to have happened between 3:00 PM and 6:30 PM that day, but that’s all I know. I know some of you are thinking that he must have cried or screamed when this happened because it must have hurt. No such luck. Owen doesn’t do either. The last time he cried he was 4 years old. I’ve told him many times it would be super helpful if he would do these things for momma so I would know he’s in pain or sad, or whatever, but as of yet, he has not obliged me. As you can imagine, it feels really bad when doctors are asking you how something happened to your kid and you can’t tell them. Another giant step away from my Mother of the Year.

The broken leg incident also taught us that we are not getting any younger and we need to put the pedal to the metal as far as getting our life in order to deal with an ever growing Owen. The aches and pains in my joints and back associated with picking up 80ish lbs of dead weight changed our perspective in terms of modifications needed for our van and equipment we’d need at our house to take care of him in the future. So lucky me, soon I get to trade in my current van for a new wheelchair accessible van. Every girl’s dream car, right? So the process of getting the new vehicle and home modifications have begun in earnest. Nothin like a broken bone to get you to stop hitting the snooze button and spring into action. We’re lucky we have community resources that help us with these things, but getting them can be a long, drawn out and exhausting process.

So you might be asking yourself, what about the hip? In hindsight, we’ve noticed that Owen has been reluctant to put weight on his left leg for some time. My guess is the hip has been an issue for awhile and we just weren’t aware of it. Originally, we were going to schedule the surgery right away, but since it doesn’t seem to bother him, we’re going to try to get all the home modifications done before we tackle that. So long story short, we’re saving that fun for another day.