Yesterday, our 8 year-old daughter Maya broke her arm playing on monkey bars... again.

See, she broke the same arm, but it wasn't really all that serious. She thought she had merely sprained it (which she had done before... again, from playing on monkey bars), but it kept hurting. When we took her to the doctor after two weeks of not getting better, he X-rayed it and determined she had a hairline fracture. At that point, the healing had already begun and he said a cast was optional. Considering how active she is, we opted for the cast to be on the safe side.

Well, yesterday she was playing on monkey bars and fell. We're guessing she landed with her hand outstretched. The force of the fall broke her upper-arm bone just above the elbow. The medical term is "type-3 supracondylar humerus fracture." It is apparently a common fracture in kids.

Here's a site I found that explains a lot about it: <http://www.dynomed.com/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/pediatric_orthopedics/Supracondylar_Fracture_of_the_Humerus.html>

Maya went in for surgery around 8. Christine called me right around 9 and the doctor told her the surgery went well, but that Maya's break was pretty bad. He indicated there was a splintering of the bone which they had to use an extra pin to compensate for.

The fracture is a type-3 because it is the worst classification of displacement. If the fracture were only type-1 or possibly type-2, she would not have needed surgery at all.

Before the surgery, the doctors did some tests to make sure Maya's nerves were not affected by the fracture. They did things like touch her fingers while she had her eyes closed to see if she could identify which finger they were touching. They asked her to do different motor actions with each of her fingers as well. She did well on everything except lifting her fingers up from a clenched state. The doctors said this probably means there was a stretching injury to her radial nerve, but that there was a small possibility of some nerve damage due to the fracture. Only time will tell.

You can read about radial nerve dysfunction here: <http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000790.htm>.

Finally, over the next 4 days or so, we need to watch closely for swelling in her arm. If it swells too much, a syndrome may develop in which the swelling compresses nerves and/or blood vessels, thereby causing complications.

Maya stayed at the hospital last night for observation. She came home this morning and is feeling pretty good. The doctors said her motion had improved as well.

Maya will not be going back to school on Monday. Next week is her last week of school (year round school) and there's a possibility she will be absent for all of it. If she does go, she will need to keep her arm elevated-- perhaps using a pillow at her desk--and she won't be able to go to recess.