Alex Ritchie

[Jerry E. Ritchie]

Everyone,

 

Thank you for all the well wishes and prays for Alex.   

 

Alex has a broken Tibia.  The Fibula is fine.  The Tibia is main weight-bearing bone in the front of the lower leg.

 

Yesterday (Sunday) the St. Vincent’s Pediatric ER put a temporary fiber-glass / resin splint on.  

 

Today we saw the pediatric bone doctor at St. Vincent’s.  This is the same group that treated Zack S. last year. (Maybe we should ask for a USAi discount.)

 

His X-rays today actually look slightly better than yesterday.  They put a more permanent plaster splint on today.   There is very little displacement between the ends of the break, and it is a ‘clean’ break.  It looks like no surgery will be required.

 

The doctors plan to take more x-rays and put a permanent long-cast to immobilize he knee and ankle and everything in between this coming Friday.  If everything goes well he should have the long-cast for four weeks and a short (below knee to ankle) water-proof cast for four weeks.  After the eight weeks of casts, he should be ready for physical therapy  

 

He is in quite a bit of pain and is taking narcotics to try and control it.  Moving from place to place is quite painful. 

 

He is also very upset to miss the rest of the club season, summer camp (he was planning to be a councilor-in-training), and the start of the high school season.  He doesn’t seem too concerned about the final two weeks of school.   

 

He is happy to accept visitors. I will try to get him to some of the games this weekend, but this is on a wait-and-see basis.

 

jer