Off-topic post ahead: My tough young skateboarding son, who just turned twelve on Saturday, broke his elbow on Sunday. How? Missing a ledge trick, landing wrong on the left arm, which bent the elbow backwards. When I picked him up from the park, he was sitting on a couch with an ice bag, the elbow dangling and looking very unnatural. One of his skate buddies told me "it rose the hair on my neck" to see it happen. Turns out he has a common fracture of the elbow, involving the end part of the upper arm bone (part of which sticks out on the inside, and hurts so much when you bang it on the desk.) The official name is supracondylar fracture of the humerus. He was put under anesthesia, where the bones were re-aligned and fixed in place with three pins that were shot through the skin into the bone. You can see the pins in the photo at right. They'll be removed in a couple of weeks.

We've had a couple of rough nights, especially dealing with the swelling and pain. The cast is heavy (and split to accomodate the swelling) and Zane says he can feel the pins going into the bone. The elbow has to be elevated above his heart, and the hand elevated above the elbow, and we've been icing down his hand, elbow and shoulder, nearly constantly. He's doing great, being a real trooper, given that he won't be able to skate for a while (fingerboards requested). My best tip so far: use bagged frozen peas instead of ice bags. They are plenty cold, and conform to odd shapes better than ice packs. We have six bags that we use in rotation. They re-freeze just fine. Corn works too, but somehow frozen peas are, well, funnier, which always helps.