Update on Owen's wrist

The lump on Owen's wrist wasn't going away so we decided to go ahead and do the MRI. It was scheduled for last Monday and went pretty well. Owen was actually pretty excited about getting to go in "the tunnel" and he did FANTASTIC. It took about 40 minutes for them to get all the images and he was so still for the whole thing. I was very impressed. But then that afternoon after we got home, they called back and said they needed us to come back in for a couple more images. At that point she told me one of the images hadn't turned out clearly so they needed to retake it and then they were going to take one more just to make sure they got a good image. The whole thing would only take 10 minutes she said. When we got there Tuesday though she said all the images from Monday had come out fine but there were just a couple images she didn't get that the radiologist wanted. And of course it took an hour to get these two images, not 10 minutes like she said. And much of that hour, she was standing in the hallway talking to her pal. ANYWAY, we had to wait until Thursday for the results even though we asked if we could go ahead and talk to the radiologist Tuesday (since they made us drive all the way back down here), but it was no deal.

Of course, after the second round of images on Tuesday, my mind started spinning. Was there something suspicious on Monday's images that made him want more? Is it a bad sign that he couldn't determine anything conclusively with just the images from Monday? No matter how I thought about it, I couldn't find a way to make myself believe having to go back for more images was a good thing. By Thursday I was beginning to feel sick!

But on Thursday when we went to see the PA at the orthopedic clinic, the first thing he said when he came in the room was that it was good news! Hallelujah! I almost burst into tears of joy right then and there. It is a cyst. It is benign. It is filled with blood and there's some calcium crystals in it as well. He said there's no need to even discuss the "c-word" which made my heart jump for joy.

Other than the lump shrinking by about half in the first 24 hours after I noticed it, it didn't shrink any more in the next 3 weeks. We always took it as a good sign that it wasn't growing any larger, but we were still concerned that it wasn't shrinking. But that Tuesday of his second MRI, I thought it looked like it had shrunk just a bit. The next day it looked slightly smaller and by his appointment on Thursday we were certain it was shrinking. This is, of course, a GREAT sign. His PA was definitely glad to see this and it has continued to shrink and the bruised coloring has faded drastically. It's a small bump now and just slightly darker in color than the skin around it. His soccer practice Thursday and game Saturday were both rained out. He should be able to start practicing again this Thursday though! The PA just wants to see him again in about 6 weeks to make sure nothing changes, or if it does change it's for the better and he can basically return to normal activities.

The bump may not ever go away completely. It might be something he always has. Or it might go away and never be seen again. Only time will tell. Until then, we'll continue to wrap his wrist for soccer or anytime we know he'll be particularly active (and therefore likely to fall on it), but it's not necessary to keep it wrapped at school or while he's sleeping at night. And we don't need to keep giving the ibuprofen either. For all practical purposes, he'll be returning to life as a regular 5 year old boy. Praise God!