The Snow Sports Merit Badge

Sometimes, scouting can be painful.....like when you walk 50 miles and then bike 50 miles and then canoe 50 miles all so you can get the mega-50 miler award....


AND expensive.....like when you have to buy a new bike or backpack or lightweight sleeping bag or ski gear because you don't have the things you need to participate....

But it looks like by far, the most costly, most painful merit badge for Caleb is the Snow Sports Merit Badge!

The phone call from Caleb at ski patrol went something like this....

Caleb: Mom, can you get me Bro. Roberts cell phone number (this would be the merit badge counselor who dragged himself up to the lodge with a fever and chills and curled up on a chair waiting to DIE so that he could be there and support the boys in completing their merit badge! Now that's sacrifice for you!)

Me: Why, did you break something? (totally joking at this point)

Caleb: Um, yeah, I hurt my wrists. (completely nonchalant like its no big deal)

Me: REALLY?!! Are you serious?!!! How bad is it?!! (enter slightly hysterical mom tone of voice)

Caleb: I don't know, their just hurt. MOM, can you just get me his number?

So I give him the number and hang up. We hear nothing for 3 hours, during which time I have assumed that it must be no big deal because no one has called us back. Sometime after midnight, the boys get home from their evening snowboarding session. Caleb has a splint on one arm and nothing on the other. Both are swollen. My assessment is that one is possibly broken and the other is probably sprained. It is in the wee hours of Sunday morning, so I decide the best thing to do is to put a brace on the unprotected arm, give him some ibuprofen and put him to bed.

The next morning we went to church. There have still been no tears from Caleb. He is pretty much solidly stoic about the whole thing. He is able to wiggle fingers on both hands which is encouraging. I go out after church and buy a brace for the other hand so we can take the lousy makeshift splint off (why in the world we have THREE braces in our home and they are all for the LEFT hand, I have no idea!) We decide to wait it out till Monday morning and take him to the orthopedist.

Lest you think I am the bad mother, let me explain. We have been through 4 broken arms up to this point in our family. Two of them happened after hours and two during office hours. Every ER visit ends in an xray, a splint and a referral to the orthopedist the next day.....oh and a bill for about $3000! So, if I have the splints, I just really can't see wasting the time and the money to go in and get the xray (which the orthopedist typically repeats anyway because it is not up to his standards) to know for sure it is broken. So, we waited. Caleb took some more ibuprofen but was not on it around the clock. He even played the piano with his left hand a bit.

Monday morning came and I took him to the orthopedist. It appears that the radius on both arms is broken. His left arm is a straight break which should be easy to heal. He will be out of that cast in about 3 weeks. His right arm has a diagonal break. It is the one that is casted higher in an effort to immobilize the arm and hope that as the swelling goes down the bones don't slip. He goes back in 10 days at which point they will decide whether or not he needs to go into surgery for manipulation. At the very least, it will need to be re-cast because the swelling will have gone down and the cast will be loose.

All I can say is HE BETTER HAVE EARNED THE MERIT BADGE!!!!