We have had a most extraordinary (crazy?) weekend from about Thursday on. I will right about all events eventually, but for now I shall write about Saturday.
I had been looking forward to Saturday for ages – it was to be my Mommy’s day out. A good friend and I had scheduled for months this day to take off and spend the entire day out gallavanting – sunrise to sunset. Friday evening, when I called to verify, I discovered that she had some unexpected things come up and as terrible as she felt and as much as she wanted to go out, she was not able. But maybe, she had told me, I will be available in the afternoon.
Another friend called shortly after that to let us know that they had their trampoline loaded in the car for us and could they stop by that evening. They had a new house with not enough back yard to set it up in, so they offered it to us. As we talked about drop off arrangements we also talked about the possiblity of her being able to take the day off from noon on. It sounded promising.
Saturday morning dawned and my second friend had to cancel. Feeling dissapointed, I didn’t really want to spend the entire day to myself. My husband suggested scheduling a baby sitter for the late afternoon to catch a matinee together and I could still have the first half the day to do what I wanted. I agreed. I found out a friend was having a special occasion at 2:00 and I terribly wanted to go, but for some reason the idea of attending kept slipping away and finally I decided to selfishly take off on my own. I had a wonderful time – I went to the bead store and looked at stone, I leisurely browsed shelves of books, drinking in that new book smell, at Barnes and Noble, and finally I landed at someplace to grab lunch. I took my time eating, engulfed in a new book. It is rather nice to go on a date with a book and curl up in solitude in a corner of a restaurant.
After lunch I hopped in the car – it was 2:00 and I was hit with a wave of exhaustion. I thought of other things to do and places to go, but it seemed the more I thought of the more tired I got, until I decided that I would go home and take a nap. I fought sleep the whole way home, but made it safely. I smiled, no doubt thinking of my comfy bed, as I saw the house and turned to pull into the drive way, it was almost 2:30.
There was Paul loading the kids into the car. One look at his face told me that something was wrong – really wrong. He waved me into the driveway and charged my window. The words tumbled out in a rush, “Dorothy broke her arm we are heading to the ER.” I nodded my head and took off down the road with the children ladened van behind me.
It wasn’t until we all met up at the hospital that I found out the details. Paul had set up the trampoline and talked with the kids about rules and what not. Not even 30 minutes later Dorothy had sailed of and landed on the ground. With a wild scream, that let Daddy no something was definitely amiss, Dorothy noticed immediately that her arm didn’t look right. She didn’t cry, just carefully held it against her and sat on the couch waiting patiently for Dad to get everything ready. Dad made a make-shift sling out of a pillow case and loaded everyone into the car. She didn’t cry again until she saw me, ‘I want Mommy!” But settled down and hung in there until the hospital.
She cried some on our way in and I whipped out my insurance card and got the registration process started. Stoic little Dorothy sat with the family and asked Dad, “Dad is that the kind of scream I need when I get hurt bad?” We had talked numerous times about not screaming unless there was a problem, the question broke some of the stress and we laughed and confirmed that it was a great scream.
Our ER visit was to turn into a long visit. They were packed and had a number of very bad cases. Thankfully I still had that new book with me. I went with Dorothy and Paul took the kids home and picked the babysitter up early. We finished getting registered and finally were given a room in the ER. After meeting with the nurse and going over more details again we waited for the X-ray technicians to get us. Dorothy in the meantime recieved a stuffed gray bunny with a bubblegum pink nose, which she immediately name “Bubblegum” much to the delight of the nurses. Soon Dorothy and Bubblegum were being wheeled down to x-ray. I was given a lead apron and sent behind a lead wall – I had done this a few times, so it was no surprise. Dot didn’t fuss or complain one bit as they arranged her arm for x-ray – the technician was amazed, “I’ve had 10-12 year old kids that hve cried, whined, and complained,” she uttered in awe. And gave Dorothy 6 stickers as a reward.
I watched the first x-ray pop up on the computer and saw immediately where the breaks were. The one x-ray I couldn’t see because it was on film, was the one that really showed how bad the breaks were. Yes, I say ‘breaks’ for a reason. She had snapped both her radius and her ulna about an inch or two up from her wrist – as the nurse said, “Snapped her arm in half.” The doctor made it in to see us some time later and talked with us about the break and that it needed reduction (basically it needed to be set). Thankfully it could be closed reduction – which meant they could knock her out and set it without opening her arm up. Yay! No surgery. After some time the anesthesiologist arrived. Everyone was absolutely amazed at our little Dot and how brave she was being.
The nurse had put in an IV in her left arm – the right arm was the one that was broken – and Dorothy was more bothered by that than by her broken arm – it was rather amusing actually. The had her all hooked up to the monitors and the anesthesiologist began to administer the drug through her I’ve to put her under. After the standard ammount she appeared to asleep and the Doc grasped her arm to set it – Dorothy’s eyes flew open, “I hurts!” she cried in a voice that broke my heart.
“She’s not out!” both doctor and anesthesiologist exclaimed and more drug was pushed through her lines. Once again the doctor began to set her arm, and again Dorothy thrashed and yelled. It was hard for me to handle. The anesthesiologist pushed more in, and finally they were able to set the bone and put on a soft mold cast to stablize her arm. The anesthesiologist was amazed, in awe he told the doc that it took 120 cc’s to get her under. To put it into perspective her told us that there was a full grown woman that needed to have her hip shoved back into place – a very painful event, and it only took 90 cc’s to knock her out. They had a good chuckle over our little fighter. 🙂
It was 8:00 in the evening when we were eventually released from the hospital and sent home with tylenol with codine and follow-up instructions.
So, today proves to be a funfilled day as I follow up with our pediatrician and an orthopedist. Oh, and did I mention that Jacob’s incision from this last mini surgery is suddenly infected? Yup, so he gets a fun filled visit to our pediatrician too. I imagine they will just knock him up with some antibiotics, hopefully, that is all it will take. So, a day in the life of the Wagner family – apparantly things have been boring around here, and we are being livened up a bit.
Fun and Flawed 