Having a cast in Disneyland
We had been planning our trip to California for a while, we had planned to drive, which would take longer than flying but we wanted to stop at the beaches and to see friends on our way to Disneyland. We made it to Southern California with no problems, the weather was beautiful and we were ready to start our vacation after being in the car for a day and a half. Our friends would not be home until later in the afternoon so we decided to start our day by going to Pismo Beach, it was so much fun! We loved how warm the weather was so we could actually get in the water and have fun. We are from Washington State, the beaches are usually chilly and overcast so it is hard to enjoy playing in the water. After we went back to our hotel we decided to meet our friends at a local park so our kids could play while we caught up and chatted. We had been there for a while when the unthinkable happened.
My husband walked up to me carrying our 5 year old son like a baby, he was cradled in his arms. I knew something was wrong because our son is way too big to be carried like that. I asked my husband what happened and he said our son tried to jump off a swing and he fell. I looked at my son's face and it was ghost white and I could see he was in pain. I asked him what was wrong and he said he was dizzy and his arm hurt really bad. We laid him down on the bench to see how bad the situation was, we knew it was not good just by looking at him though. He said his wrist and his elbow hurt so we decided it was better to play it safe and take him to the doctor.
We took him to the local ER, it was about 8:30 when we finally got there. We got checked in pretty fast and they had us back in a room within minutes so we were hopeful it would go fast. It did not. But luckily they put ice on his arm and gave him medicine so his pain was not as bad. We thought maybe it was just bruised since he seemed to be doing better. We found out about 1AM that he was not fine, his arm was broken in two places and he would need a cast. They were going to put a splint on him in the hospital so we could keep an eye on the swelling. We did not know what this meant for the rest of our trip, we had not made it to Disneyland yet and that was the whole point of the trip!
We decided to do a little research before deciding what to do next, our son is the one that loves to ride rides so we knew that we could only take him to Disneyland if he was able to still ride the rides. We found that he could still ride the rides! We were so happy! We were going to cancel the rest of our trip if he could not ride the rides, but now we could still go.
Our son got a lot of attention at Disneyland, everyone wanted to know what happened to him and told him to get better. They were all very friendly. He was able to ride all the rides he wanted to ride, even Splash Mountain, we brought a garbage bag with us to wrap his arm in. We were lucky we did, we got soaked. When we went to Disney California Adventure we forgot to bring a bag but we saw a park worker that had bags and asked if we could have one and she gave us one, which is good because he really wanted to go on Grizzly River Run and there is a chance you can get wet on it. We had fast passes so we got right on the ride, it was a lot of fun and we did get wet but his arm was completely dry! When we got off the ride we noticed that there was no line, my son really wanted to go again so we said okay since he still had his bag on his arm. He loved it the second time just as much!
Going to Disneyland and California Adventure with a cast is definitely not ideal but we made the best of it and had a blast. We walked slower than we would have otherwise, we did not want him to fall since he had a splint on and not a hard cast. He also had a sling around his neck, which helped a lot. He said his arm was too heavy without it.
The only real downside was we could not enjoy our hotel pool, but in the end that was actually okay, the time we would have spent in the pool in the afternoon we just rested in our room instead which was wonderful. Disneyland is very tiring! I highly recommend an afternoon break to re-energize. We paid to use the bus system, our hotel was very close to the park but we did not want to have to walk back and forth with his arm the way it was and risk injuring it more. There were two different buses we could take so we never had to wait too long.
My son was able to enjoy Splash Mountain, the picture below shows his surprise! He really did love the ride, he just did not believe me when I told him how big the drop was going to be. He asked to go right back on it when we got off of it.
