~Four Moore's~: Asher's leg/birthday....

What a crazy, busy, fun-filled, exciting last two and a half weeks we've had!!! Here's an overview: we've had a visit to the ER, a fully splinted little leg, a 2nd birthday (Thomas the Train style), a Grammi and PawPaw visit, a visit to the orthopedic surgeon, a neon orange full cast, a trip to New York City for Mommy and Daddy, a 5th birthday party with lots of friends, a birthday week full of celebrating, back to the airport to return Grammi and PawPaw and finally an official FIVE year old!!! Whew...I'm worn out just recapping it! So, for my personal documentation and for those interested in the details...here's a start to them:

Two weeks (and a few days) ago...Thursday night, Lynzi and Asher were running down the hallway, side-by-side taking turns kicking a basketball. As Asher came up to the big rug in our living room, his foot got caught up under it and twisted his leg around as he fell full-force and hit the back of his head. All I saw (and heard) from my view was his head hitting the floor, as he screamed. And screamed. And screamed. I was consoling him and checking his head (it was carpet that he hit), but for him to be screaming that amount...I knew it hurt. After a few minutes, I put him down and he buckled at his knee. Ryan saw it and automatically assumed it was his foot that he hurt, not his head. So we start examining his foot and he screams at everything we touch. So we know a trip to the emergency room is in our near future. Ryan took Asher to his room to change his diaper and started getting him calm enough to really figure out exactly what is hurt. And he realized it was his left leg, just uner his knee (upper outter shin.) I was on the phone with our nurse's line and calling urgent care, both of which told us to take him to ER since he couldn't bare any weight on it, he hit his head (which turned out to be nothing) and his age. By the time we were in the car, 30 minutes had passed since it happened and he was still crying...which is very un-Asher-like, so we knew there was a real problem. Finally once we had been driving for a few minutes...45 minutes after he hurt it, he started looking out the window and calming down. And of course once we were in the hospital, there were LOTS of interesting sights to see..so he calmly took it all in! Of course the night Asher hurts himself, everyone else in town does too...the waiting room was jam-packed and a several hour wait. Life flights and ambulances kept coming in the back too, which are obviously first priority. After they triaged us, Ryan took the kids out to the car to watch movies and wait (and sleep). THREE hours later...they FINALLY called us back. Asher was so sensitive when the doctor examined it and the doctor definitely suspected it was broken. After the x-ray (and more waiting), he said he couldn't see a visible break on the x-ray, but that didn't rule out a hairline fracture, so he still wanted to cast it. He put on a temporary splint from his toes to his upper thigh and referred us to an orthopedic surgeon. We got an appointment for the following Tuesday. In the meantime, he couldn't walk on it, but he figured out quickly how to crawl and drag it along behind him!!! Saturday (Feb. 20th) was his birthday! He turned 2. Poor bubba...Happy Birthday...here's a cast for you! It really didn't phase him much. I think his thoughts are, "Well, ya turn 2 and get a cast..normal business!" Grammi and PawPaw already had a planned trip to come in on Saturday evening to stay with the kids while Ryan and I went on a trip. Sunday after church we had a fun Thomas the Train party! Asher is all about choo choo's! I got him an adorable conductor's hat and a train shirt. Mimi and Poppy got him a new part for his train set that he got for Christmas, Grammi and PawPaw got him a wooden rocking horse and Uncle Coy, Bebe, Jaym and Jax sent him a tool set with a screw driver. He's had so much fun with all his new toys! So the hitch with the Tuesday orthopedic appointment was that Ryan and I were leaving for our trip on Monday. We had all the consent form paperwork filled out and ready to go for Mom and Dad to take care of it, but we still hated to leave him!!! Well, I'll finish up the cast story before I get into our trip. So they took him in on Tuesday morning and the doctor looked at the x-rays from the ER and said it's a "toddler fracture", which means it won't show up on an x-ray for 2-3 weeks, once it starts healing. He casted it from his toes to his upper thigh and said he'd be able to walk in after a few days of getting used to it. They got home with him and he was running around on it by that evening!!! It really doesn't slow him down...he just has an extra little hobble in his step. People started signing his cast and he was a little disturbed by that! He would point to it and say, "What dat?" over and over! We go back to the orthopedic on March 16 and they'll re-xray it and depending on what they see, he'll either put a short cast on it for 2 more weeks or he'll let him go a free little man! We'll see. So, I'm working on the rest of the posts about our NYC trip and Lynzi's birthday and so on. I'll stop now before I make blogger crash or something after all this blabbing! I'll post the other stories and pictures soon. Here are lots of Asher pictures for now:

~Lt. Asher~