Crisis Averted, Somewhat.

On Monday, John was out in the barn "piddling" around.  He was using his welder and had it plugged in, and while walking around it he tripped on the cord. Boom! He fell face first into the gravel (and has the road rash to prove it.)  His right elbow hit the bottom of the shovel that was propped up nearby and took the brunt of the fall. 

Off to the ER we went, where they took an x-ray, put on a cast-wrap kind of contraption, and referred us to an ortho a few days later.  The x-ray revealed the bone had chipped and was pulled away by one of the tendons. Possible surgery was threatened. 

Today we went to the ortho and the judgement was that his tricep muscle had indeed pulled a chip of bone away from is elbow. The doc thought it would resolve itself without surgery since John had some improved range of motion already,  and he has to go back in 4 weeks to re-evaluate.  They took off all of the wraps, etc. so I think John was just relieved to get all that paraphanelia off, especially the sling which was irritating the heck out of him.

He's still really sore and has a bruise above one eye, and a road rash on his nose, but he's getting better. I think he was most relieved about no surgery, and so was I!