When Bikes Attack

Thursday afternoon was the last good day of mild weather before another snowstorm was scheduled to hit on Friday.  The younger kids all went outside to play, as they had done the previous two afternoons.  Alexandra rode her tricycle, or rather, she sat on it and pushed herself forward using her feet on the ground.  Or she would look especially tragic until someone took pity and pushed her.  They also drew elaborate streets, stop signs, and parking lots with sidewalk chalk on the courtyard and used those to drive their bikes on. 

Nicholas didn't want to go outside, but I strongly encouraged him to, in a nonstop, annoying, you-are-going-get-in-trouble-if-you-don't kind of way and he eventually joined the other kids.  (It sounds mean and cruel, I know.  But it's the only way I have found to get through his Aspbergerish refusal to do certain things.)  Anyway, once he got outside, he had a great time, as I knew he would.  He was riding his bike around the little streets the other kids had drawn and everyone was playing together quite nicely. 

This lasted for quite a while, a couple of hours, at least, until his bike went psycho on him.  What really happened is this; while trying to drive on the chalk streets, he got up quite a bit of speed and tried to take a curve a little too sharply with too much speed.  This resulted in him falling over, and the bike landing on his knee.  To hear Nick's version of events, though, is quite the story.  Apparently, he was just riding along, minding his own business,  when for some unexplained reason his bike decided to just fall on him.  He is even now, just a bit angry at his bike for doing this.

I heard him cry out through the window, but didn't hear anything more after that, so figured he was fine.  A few minutes later, Noah opened up the front door and as I came to greet him, I saw Nicholas crawling up the stairs on his hands and knees, moaning in pain.  His left knee was already quite swollen and looking a lovely shade of purple.  He couldn't straighten or bend his knee all the way.  I gave him some pain medicine to take the edge off while he slept and we had him stay off of it for the rest of the night.  The next morning, I kept him home from school because it was even more swollen and he couldn't walk on it at all. 

We got in to see the doctor that morning, and he took an x-ray to be sure the knee cap was broken or dislodged.  Thankfully, that was not the case.  But he was concerned by the amount of swelling and the limit of movement.  We came back home armed with some pain pills that also reduced swelling, an ace bandage, and a request to bring him back on Tuesday if it was any worse.  The doctor is concerned that he may have a torn ligament, which does not show up on the x-ray and wants to get Nick into a specialist as soon as possible, if that is the case.  We are hoping it is not, but don't want him to suffer his whole life with a stiff knee if it is. 

And of course, he was not only mad at his bike, but at me, for suggesting he go outside and play in the first place.  Sorry, Nick, I really didn't know it would end so badly.

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