Lucas Camilo

Instead of part 2 of late summer stories, we come with less exciting news: Lucas has a broken leg.

On Saturday, a nurse was transferring him, and he suddenly exploded in tears.  She laid him back down on the couch, and after a bit he was consoled.  Later she tried moving him again and the same thing happened.

When Krista and her mom got home (Burke was at his friend Spencer’s wedding in California), Lucas started crying inconsolably again.   Lucas doesn’t often cry and only throws the occasional tantrum.  He often bears pain – a brace that’s too tight or a toe that’s buckled and squeezed in his shoe – without telling us.  But this time he was clearly flinching, crying and making the most terrible pained expressions every time we got near his left, so we knew it was serious.

We took him into the ER and got there around 6:30 pm.  Even though they got us a bed quickly, things moved slowly in the hospital.  It took a long conversation with the resident for him to declare that Lucas needed an x-ray of his left leg.  By 10 pm we did the x-ray.  By 11 we finally heard back from the doctor and it was what we suspected: Lucas’s femur was fractured, likely in a small torque that happened during the transfer.

This is something we have know is a risk because of Lucas’s osteopenia (low calcification of bones due to not bearing weight), and indeed other kids with myotbular myopathy have broken bones in similar situations.  As his limbs get longer and heavier but his muscles remain extremely weak, the possibility of a leg getting trapped in a compromising position becomes more likely.  Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier for Lucas, though.

This doctor didn’t know what the orthopedic team would do — possibly surgery, major casting, or splints.  Although Burke was at a wedding reception, we spent a lot of time on the phone, including discussing what it would mean for Lucas to have a cast that secured his hip and knee joint– according to the nurse, such a cast would wrap around the waist, go down the leg and over the knee.  It was a terrifying proposal, since Lucas’s leg turns out while he lies down (in a sort of frog-leg position), but rotates in to sit in his wheelchair.  Which position would they build the cast in?  Would it make it impossible for him to get up in his chair, or impossible to sleep?  To our relief, they ended up choosing the splint option, which just connects his upper and lower legs.

Lucas has been an amazing sport through this whole ordeal.  He is very clear with us when he is in pain — every time we move him.  He had never said “oww” before this, but now if we make a movement in the direction of his left leg, he starts off with a preventative “owwwie, owwwie, owwwie!”  But if we’re not moving him or changing his diaper, he’s pretty content.  At about midnight in the hospital, after he’d had a dose and a half of oxycodone and his leg had been splinted, he got very cheery and started telling everyone what a good time he’d had getting an x-ray.  (Not true — it was extremely painful as they held his leg in different positions.  But paleantologists use x-rays to study fossils, so perhaps in hindsight the experience connected him to his beloved dinosaurs.)  He chirped about how much he liked watching Toy Story on the hospital TV (because there’s a T-Rex that tries to scare Woody!)  He was thrilled that a new, special van for medical transport was coming to pick us up and take us home.

On Sunday Gramma Susan did a lot of book reading, and she was able to help move Lucas in and out of bed, something that is now a two person job.  She left for Portland right as Burke got back to Seattle having gotten an early flight home from California.

Fortunately Lucas has a lot of things that he can do while lying down– like reading books, watching Winnie the Pooh movies, and doing puzzles on his iPad.  So we’re settling into a less mobile routine for a few days.  Or weeks.  School starts Wednesday, but given how much it hurts to move, Lucas may have to skip the first few days of kindergarten.

Lucas loves getting mail, so “get-well-soon” cards could help make this ordeal a little more bearable.  Our address is 2943 36th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98144.  Thanks in advance for the love and healing thoughts.