It’s hard to imagine by looking at our son now that he broke his femur bone back in September 2021 (4 months ago) the recovery was swift and he’s back to being an uncontrollable ball of energy, running, dancing, climbing and jumping at any chance he can get. The only give away is when he’s tired and he starts to limp ever so slightly. Our son had his spica cast on for 5 weeks. Apparently little folk have a magical quality to them though, and their bones tend to heal quickly. That old saying of ‘the days were long, but the month flew by’ is so true!

It only took one little slip up for it to happen. My beautiful 20 month old baby boy had a broken leg and it was all my fault. It was a Sunday night and I was running the bath for all the boys. He was playing around and when I called them all to get in the bath, Seth didn’t turn up, he’d climbed on a set of drawers with a TV on top and it had all fallen over on top of him but he hadn’t cried or made a sound!

I immediately scooped him up and ran my hand over all his limbs, nothing appeared wrong until I tried to get him to stand. When he wouldn’t, I called Gavin to come check him out. We then decided to go straight to A&E, after I gathered a bag of toys and other bits we might need. Within an hour of the accident happening, Seth and I were waiting in the waiting room of A&E to be seen. He seemed absolutely fine, as long as you didn’t touch his leg. It wasn’t long before we were seen and an X-ray was arranged. It was very quickly diagnosed as a fractured femur in his right leg and it would need a cast. However our local hospital wasn’t able to complete this as Seth was under 2 years old, so we were advised we would need to go to another hospital.

It was one of the worst moments in my life when they confirmed the fracture. Seth had a weight attached to his leg to keep everything aligned and we were admitted to the children’s ward to wait for hospital transport to take us to the city hospital. We waited 24 hours for the ambulance to take us, they appeared the next evening (Monday night) at 11pm – Seth and I were both fast asleep, I was fuming. Little did I know we would be waiting a further 2 days before anything would progress.

On the Wednesday afternoon, I held my little boys hand whilst he was put to sleep so he could have the spica cast put on. He was gone for an hour and then it took him a long time to come back round. He was starving and ate everything in site but quickly brought it all back up too! I think the medications were still wearing off!

By the Thursday we were advised that the physio would need to see our pushchair and car seat to make sure we could go home safely. Not long after that visit we were discharged. The doctor said we needed to attend Fracture Clinic the next week for an X-ray to make sure everything was still in the correct place.

The next couple of weeks were tough! Trying to entertain a 20 month old all day without being able to get out and about proved hard! Distraction it seemed was the best medicine. He learnt how to crawl (drag) himself along the floor and how to get up on the sofa and waddle around holding onto something.

5 weeks later the cast came off. He was wobbly at first, in fact scared to walk. It reminded me of when he was just learning to walk. His hands held up, me walking behind him and holding on to them, guiding him, gently encouraging him as he took his first wobbly steps. I don’t think he realised the enormity of what he’d just done!

It had been a slow road to recovery. It’s tough seeing what he used to be able to do, to then watching how quickly he got tired. We waited till February 2022 (3 months later) to have his follow up appointment and everything is picture perfect. He’s back to our little boy now, you wouldn’t know it had ever happened. We still have to make sure his legs grow the same length at the same time (something to do with increased blood flow). The bone’s are growing really well though, so I have no concerns.

It was a bleak few weeks but it’s over now and we’re looking forward to the future and summer adventures. It’s true what they say about little folk, they really do bounce back. People say to us, it must’ve been hard. It was. We’ve got our fingers crossed there’ll be no long term problems that arise. Our son has amazed us with his determination, understanding, patience and his ability to still laugh every day. We’re so proud of him. 

Much love Rebecca