No one can tell us why Namine keeps breaking bones. The cause of her last broken leg is still unknown. When we saw her bone specialist after that, he told us that her legs would always be prone to breaks, simply because the bones are thinner and less dense. Then Namine broke her wrist.
The broken wrist was truly puzzling. Up to that point, we had no reason to believe that she’d ever be prone to breaks in her upper extremities. But now, how cautious would she (and, by extension, we) have to be?
This morning, Namine had an x-ray of her left wrist to look at the growth plates. The doctor believes her wrist broke simply due to overuse. Namine uses her arms more than a normal* child, since she wheels herself when she’s in her wheelchair and crawls when she’s not.
She’s active in sports, dance, and piano. She also has physical therapy once a week, during which she walks in her walker for an hour and a half. Tallying all this up, it’s no surprise that one of her wrists has broken from the stress.
The bone density scan that Namine had after the wrist x-ray primarily focused on Namine’s spine, ribs, pelvis, as well as her legs. If did not include her arms. It revealed that overall, her bones have good, solid density. This is good news: her spine is in no danger, despite her having scoliosis.
Unfortunately, it gets us no closer to understanding why her legs break so easily. On the other hand, the scan focused on Namine’s core, and offered no way to analyze the density of her legs alone.
We will return in two years for another bone density scan to see if anything has changed. In the meantime, Namine will just have to be more careful of her legs. She’ll also probably start wearing braces on her wrists, especially when playing sports and doing therapy.
* I greatly dislike the word “normal,” since each person has their own standard for normalcy. On the other hand, I cringe at the term “physio-typical,” which is a little more PC but smacks of look at me using big words, I’m so smart.
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