Spiral Gyra

Saturday we went to watch Josh play baseball.  He has been out for a few years because of a major bone breakage in his left arm (he’s built backward that way) from throwing a dodge ball.

Average, everyday, arm breaking dodgeball.

He really wants to play ball again so Joel and I have been going over to help him throw and get his arm in shape.  There is lots of scar tissue to break up and his muscles need lots of work from lack of use.  He has lots of pain but it is the good kind.

So Saturday he was playing centerfield and was having a pretty good day.  Three hits and several RBI’s plus a couple of good catches in the field.  On one, a low line drive to center, he ran hard and tried to make a shoestring catch but ended up dropping the ball.  It was a great play but just not enough speed to make it easy.

In the process, he landed funny on his hand/wrist and thought he had sprained something.  On his next ‘at-bat’, rather than take a full swing, he tried to bunt on the first pitch.  That didn’t work well so he drilled a single to centerfield and drove in a run.

After the inning was over he came walking over to where we were sitting and told Heather he needed to go to the doctor cause his hand hurt.  There was some swelling, and with his history of injuries (OK, he has never been seriously injured until he broke his arm in three places by throwing a dodge ball) he worried something else might be wrong.  So we gathered up the kids and took them with us while they (Heather and Josh) went to the doctor.

A few hours later we received a call letting us know that Josh had broken the fifth metatarsal in his right hand and the fracture was spiral in nature.

Look at the last finger on the right.  See the darker line that goes from right to left and then left to right?  That's a spiral fracture.  Pretty cool, eh!

That’s funny; his broken arm was called a spiral fracture also!!!  Weird!!!

The doctor gave Josh and Heather cause for some alarm when he suggested the break might require surgery (they are going to a hand specialist to see) and mentioned that there could be some major problems with healing (I think they might have been exaggerating for legal effect).

It seems that baseball has won this latest battle in Josh’s effort to overcome aging and losing contact with some of the things he loves.  Sure hope he doesn’t do anything to mess up his ability to flyfish.