Too busy to write? No, not really. Just slack!

I have been exceptionally slack with writing over the last few months, and to be honest, I don’t really have any reason not to be sitting at my laptop, tapping away at the keys.

 It’s been a big few months for us.  It turned out that back in October, Julian hadn’t just fractured the radial head in his elbow, he had what is called an ‘Essex-Lopresti fracture’, which basically means he fractured the radial head in his elbow, dislocated his wrist and compressed the ligament in his forearm.  He ended up with a ‘sugar-tong’ cast for 4 weeks, and he has healed quite nicely.  It took about a week and a half for him to be able to straighten his arm out properly though!

Julian turned 13 last month!  Such a huge milestone for him, and given his pre-teen attitude up until that point, nothing short of a miracle!!  Just kidding.  It was a pretty big deal though.  He wanted to go out to dinner in a restaurant for his birthday, so 36 people ended up at the Hog’s Breath at Main Beach, including 3 of his mates for a stomach bursting meal.  Of course, teenagers being teenagers, he and his mates ended up watching Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy while eating chips and finally crashing at about 1am . . . after which, Nigel & I thankfully crashed as well!  A big thank you to my folks for taking our younger 3 for the night, and to all our friends and family – some of whom travelled many hours to get there – thank you so much for making Julian’s birthday something he will never forget.

And of course, school has finished for the year, Christmas has come and gone - my family's first Christmas without my big brother - and we are so close to 2014 we can just about touch it!

Be safe, be healthy and make sure your children (in particular those with teenage attitudes!) remember that no matter how close you come to strangling them, you love them with all your heart, and you always will.

What HAS he done now?

Nigel’s brother has spent the last week with us, and we decided to have a family day last Saturday for my birthday.  It was lovely.  Wayne took my parents in his 4WD ute, we had the kids in ours and we took the drive to Lost World Valley (part of Lamington National Park).  We picked wild raspberries, got a bit edgy when a bull came very close to us protecting his ‘Wifey’ and the kids had fun skipping stones in the creek.

From there, we took Duck Creek Road (4WD only) up to O’Reillys (Lamington National Park) for coffee, juice and hot chips before stopping off at one of our favourite lookouts – Kamarun lookout – to take in the gorgeous view before the long drive home.

We had no sooner gotten out of the car when we all heard a loud thud, then a scream, and turned to see Julian lying on the ground half on his side, half on his stomach – very still - near the covered gazebo.  Nigel and I raced over to see what had happened (closely followed by Wayne, Mum and Dad) and ended up with Julian screaming at us “Don’t touch my arm, don’t you dare touch my arm!”

Between the two of us, we managed to convince him to let us roll him over onto his back so Nigel could check his arm while I supported him from behind.  Mum came over with her every present, fully stocked first aid kit and while I cleaned the scrapes on one arm, Nigel was checking over the other one, which Julian was having trouble moving, and all the while we were trying to find out what had happened.  Turns out he had tried to vault a stone pillar using his right hand, which had slipped and he put his left arm out to ‘save’ himself as he fell. 

We had 2 junior Doctors come over (they were having a bit of a break away and had decided to wander up and check out the sunset) who are currently interning at Redcliffe hospital (what are the odds?!) and offered to check Julian over to make sure nothing was broken.  Luckily for Julian, one of them was interning in Orthopedics!!!  There was no break, however they did say to keep an eye on his arm because some injuries wouldn’t really show up until the next day.

And the next morning, this proved to be true.  His elbow had swollen up overnight, his wrist was extremely painful and he had pins and needles in his fingers.  So, off to the hospital we went.  The result?  Julian had fractured the radial head in his elbow and had also severely sprained his wrist.  So, we have an appointment on Monday to see if they’ll keep the cast on or keep it off.  In the meantime, he’s in a lot of pain, but very thankful he hadn’t broken anything.

Boys.

Nigel and I would like to send out a huge thank you to the 2 Junior Doctors from Redcliffe Hospital who helped us out on Saturday afternoon.  You were both very confident, reassuring and comforting.  I may not look forward to meeting you again in the future, but don't take that personally!!!  

Also, a huge thank you to the staff at Robina Hospital Emergency Department.  I don't think I have ever seen a more efficient Emergency Department (and I have seen a LOT).  No doubt I will be seeing you again sometime in the future!