FAMILY MATTERS
When it's football time, cast comes off quickly
By Ka'ohua Lucas
The plan was to take the week off during the Christmas holidays. I was really looking forward to a much-needed vacation. The weather forecast called for blue, sunny skies.
First on the agenda was to wrap up my Christmas shopping. Then, spend the better part of the week at Cromwell's, where the boys could entertain themselves leaping into Doris Duke's abandoned yacht slip.
My thoughts were rudely interrupted when my cellular phone whined.
"Yes, I think he has a fractured fibula (the long thin outer bone of the leg)," the trainer was saying over the phone.
My heart felt as if it would explode. It was as if someone had grabbed my na'au (intestines) and wrenched them.
"When can you come and pick him up?" he asked.
"I'll be there in 10 minutes."
As I raced to my 13-year-old's rescue, my thoughts were grim. Would he be incapacitated for the rest of the wrestling season, or his life?
Please, Ke Akua (God), allow him to heal quickly.
When I arrived, my son hobbled over to the van on crutches.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Vince fell on me," he said.
Vince is my son's friend. They're on the offensive line during football season. This year my son convinced Vince to come out for wrestling.
Of mixed Polynesian ancestry, Vince is 6 feet, 3 inches tall and weighs 295 pounds, but has lost weight since wrestling season began. He is the biggest guy on the wrestling team, and my 190-pound son volunteers to wrestle him "because he provides a challenge."
As we drove to the doctor's office, the injured patient described in gory detail how his ankle snapped.
"But you know what, Mom?" he said. "Vince felt really bad and carried me all the way down to the trainer's."
Within five hours, we had visited the pediatrician who sent us to a radiologist for X-rays; then we hand-carried the film to the orthopedic surgeon.
"It doesn't look broken, but with young people, we can never tell," the doctor said.
As a safety measure, the surgeon placed my son's leg in a removable air cast.
"I want him to wear this for two weeks," he said. "And the only time he is to take it off is when he showers."
If it were 200 years earlier, my son would have been under the care of someone who practiced la'au lapa'au or Hawaiian medicine. His ankle would have been immobilized by a splint.
Then, the "koali vine with the whole root (would have been mashed) with a handful of Hawaiian salt," applied to the ankle and bound gently with a clean cloth, according to L.R. McBride in "Practical Folk Medicine of Hawai'i."
Fortunately, we have the benefit of modern medicine. As the week progressed, the excruciating pain my son had initially experienced seemed remarkably to disappear.
While at my in-laws' on Christmas Day, I happened to peer out the sliding glass door to check on my boys.
Next to a kiawe tree lay an abandoned air cast, discarded by its patient. My sons were out on the lawn, practicing their football kickoff returns.
"Hui," I yelled. "Get over here and put this cast on!"
As my son hobbled over to retrieve his cast, I glared at him.
We'll soon know whether not heeding the doctor's advice torpedoed his chances of a full recovery.
Reach Ka'ohua Lucas at Family Matters, 'Ohana section, The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802; ohana@honoluluadvertiser.com; or fax 525-8055.
