As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Broken Arm

I got a call from day care around 3:30 on Thursday afternoon that Sara had "hurt her arm on the playground." (Deja vu, right?) Assuming the Head/Manly drama genes were in full effect, I was not all that concerned and said I'd be there to get her. Hallie and I drove over to the day care a few minutes ahead of our planned time to rescue the wounded.

A tear-streaked little face was sitting on her teacher's lap. She had moments of calm between lots of tears. I thought we would try to go home and take some Tylenol to see if that would help. So we headed for the car.

On the way to the car, though, she started howling and didn't let up as we crossed the bridge to go home. So I careened into the emergency room parking lot instead of continuing the drive home. Jason came and got Hallie and Brooks so that I didn't have to haul all three children into the ER waiting room, thank goodness.

The first set of (very painful) X-rays showed a little buckle fracture in her forearm. But a nurse who helped me move her was not satisfied and requested an X-ray of the top half of her arm as well. And thank goodness she did, because that revealed a really nasty break of her humerus.

We waited and dozed while they decided what to do.


The doctors thought the break would need surgery and didn't want to put such a little one under. So they shipped us up to Children's in an ambulance. They gave S some morphine through an IV (I'm pretty sure all the color drained from my face when they said they were going to do this).  I assumed this would help her rest on the drive to Birmingham.  Except it didn't.  At all.  Instead, she became downright bubbly. One of the EMTs on the ambulance asked me if she normally talked so much. She had him in stitches. Note to self: morphine does NOT make Sara sleepy.


 
About the time we got close to Birmingham, though, the novelty had worn off and she was very hungry. She complained that her tummy hurt, and this made sense because it was approaching 7:30 and neither of us had eaten in several hours (and wouldn't, as it turns out, until about 1 am).

 
When we arrived at Children's, reinformcements joined us!  Gigi and Grumpy came to visit and check on the patient.

The doctors at Children's had to re-X-ray my girl because the hospital here forgot to send their films. So that was another adventure in agony. It's really un-fun to have someone turning your arm in various directions to take pictures when it's broken.

Ultimately they decided to put her to sleep to cast it. Before doing so they said that the drug they were using causes vivid dreams and we should talk up something good for her to dream about. We went the birthday party route. Evidently I have now promised Sara an Ariel party with strawberry cake. I'm just glad I didn't promise anything crazy--I probably would have said anything to help her dream good things after the crappy day she'd had.

They put her under, cast the arm, and eventually sent us on our way with a loritab prescription and a requirement that we follow up with them in a week.

 
My girl hurt pretty badly during the night and the next day, but each day is easier. I think by tomorrow we will have moved from pain to full-blown annoyance (she realized this morning that her cast means she can't do cartwheels or color), where we will stay until the cast is removed in 4 to 6 weeks. My main goal is to have her in a waterproof cast before our beach trip in May. Prayers appreciated...

1 comment:

Duski said...

Oh Anita! What a bad day. Poor Sara. Sounds like she was a trooper.

Reading this, I realize how far behind I am on your life. I am just now getting back to reading blogs. I would love to catch up sometime. Maybe we can chat on the phone sometime soon.