Tough start for Nils

It is not a secret that Nils is the one in our family who probably misses Palo Alto the most and he was not really looking forward to moving back to Sweden. Ok, reuniting with cousins and other relatives is fun, playing around on the beach is also ok, but when it comes to starting school again he would definitely prefer to start 7th grade at Jordan instead of 6th grade at Tunaskolan. Well, it was going to be Tunaskolan anyway and he was fine with it.

But the evening before school was about to start he was at his 5th soccer practice with his new team, Torns IF. It is a nice group of boys and even if the level of the practice is below PASC standard, the team is competitive and doing well among the other teams in the region. Practically all teams in this age group are trained by parents. They play 8v8 and they don't use the rule Offside. Nils thinks this is very odd, but there is not much he can do about it. This particular evening the coach called me when there was 15 minutes left of the practice. He told me that Nils and one of the other boys had both been running for the ball and Nils had fallen and perhaps broken his wrist. I thought he was exaggerating and asked if he wanted me to come right away to pick him up. The coach said that it was not necessary because the manager and the co-coach were already on their way to the ER with Nils and he wanted one of us to meet them there. Since I had just come home from the hospital myself with diagnosed high blood pressure it was Mats who had to go.

Sure enough it was broken. You didn't even have to be a doctor to realize that. Just look at the picture. With the penny still on he was sitting in the waiting room with the manager and co-coach when Mats arrived. He had been such a sport, said the manager, not complaining a bit after the initial shock and scream right when it happened. After a long wait with only Tylenol to ease the pain they took him in for treatment. 

X-ray to see what was wrong. The largest bone, radius, was completely off (see above). Many injektions around the wrist with anaesthetic and then they pulled the bones back in place. Painful, but necessary. Then they put a blue, plastic cast on and another round of x-rays to see that the bones were in the right place.

At 1am, after 5 hours in the hospital, they were back home. Alice and I were sleeping since many hours not knowing how Nils would feel about going to school in the morning, but we had our guesses. And of course he was not at all in shape to start school the next day. He was in a lot of pain and had not slept well, so he spent the day home with me. Alice was sad to walk by herself, but there was not much to do about it. She came home a couple of hours later though - very happy. She was in a good class and was already looking forward to going back the next day.