As I wrote in my last post, Waving the White Flag, our youngest ended up fracturing her arm on New Years Day.

Now, I should tell you that she is very active, ambitious, and a risk taker. This is her second broken bone and she just had stitches on the back of her head a few months ago.  This kid can’t catch a break! (Yah, I heard it too, that is probably not the best phrase to use since that is what she seems to catch)

Anyhow, she was walking down the stairs carrying the iPad and her puke bowl and she had 2 steps to go-2 steps!-carpeted steps! and she trips and falls into the carpeted living room on her arm.  She is crying and holding her hand. It is lunch time, so I am thinking, lets eat, she can then take a rest and when she gets up it should be fine. I mean, it was only 2 stairs and a slow easy fall- right?

WRONG

After she got up from her rest she was still not using that hand and held it in a protective position. I look at my husband and he says what we both were thinking, “I think you better take her in.”

I quickly change into “fit for going out of the house clothes” and out of the “we are not going anywhere today, so I am wearing these old comfortable rag clothes I wouldn’t be caught dead in outside of my house” (also, I had not had a shower yet that day-so half greasy hair it will be) and we drive 3o minutes to the nearest hospital.

The ER is our only option being it is a holiday. Our only option and anyone and everyone else that felt they needed to see a doctor on New Year’s day. It was full, we needed to wait for a room.

While we waited in triage, the nurse came and took her information, vitals, and I had to explain what happened to bring us there.  He squeezed around her arm and wrist-she didn’t make a peep. Now if I had done it she would have been yelling, “No!, Stop!” as she did when I was just holding her arm in my hand.

Then we got a room and 2 major traumas came in which of course trumped us (as it should).

Once in the room, we waited an hour before the doctor was able to see her. She was very irritable and demanding…and bored. As I said before, this child does not just sit still, she is BUSY.  I tried to entertain her with the small stuffed animal we brought along. That lasted about 1 minute. Next I pulled out my phone and we watched the PBS kids app. Which was working except it was guzzling my battery like a college student at a frat party. When it got down to 10%, I cut her off-I needed to be able to communicate what was going on to my husband and I wasn’t sure how long we were going to be there. Well you can guess how well that went over. One of the nurses must have heard me trying to reason with her (or wanted to make sure I wasn’t beating her in there with all the crying she was doing and shouting, “Don’t!, Don’t!” when I turned it off) and came in and gave us the remote for the TV that was in the room.  Do you think there was any programming on for a 3 year old? No. Personal parenting choice my husband and I made was our kids do not watch Sponge Bob. What do you think was the only animated show on-that’s right-Sponge. Bob. Square. Pants. I was desperate- I tried the one other kid channel and that had a show on our 9 year old would have liked but it did not appease the 3 year old that was screaming she wants to watch Curious George. Thinking she would like the idea that she was getting away with something, I told her it we would this one time watch Sponge Bob and it would be our secret from her sisters. NOPE, she wasn’t having it. I was torn, on one hand I was glad she did not like the show but on the other hand, now how was I going to keep her occupied and out of trouble in this small cell room.

Finally the doctor was able to see her. Again, I recounted the story of what had happened. He thought maybe her elbow was just dislocated and proceeded to do a maneuver where he held onto her hand and twisted and rotated her arm into different locations-which of course made her cry and made me want to bop him in the face for hurting my child. As he is doing this, he says, “This hurts while it is done, but if it works, she will be using it within a few minutes”. And I’m thinking, “What if you are wrong about the dislocation thing and her arm IS broke, how’s that gonna feel for her!” I knew it hurt her bad because she has a high pain tolerance and she was crying out in pain as he did this.

As I suspected, that did not fix the problem, so then he ordered x-rays. Waited another hour to get those done. While we waited, she was getting hungry-well it was supper time. Luckily, I found I had 3 fruit snack bags stashed in my purse. Then she was thirsty. I went out and asked a nurse for a glass to get her some water. She was not going to let her drink anything in case she needed to be sedated. I said, “for her hand?!” I was about to tell her it was too late anyway, she just ate 3 bags of fruit snacks (good thing I didn’t have to tell her, that might have given her a stroke), but she came to her senses and said she would let her have a little bit.

Finally it was her turn for x-rays. She was a trooper and sat still and cooperated for the x-rays. We went back to our holding cell room to wait for the doctor to read the x-rays. He came in and told us the news-a buckle fracture. He splinted it and gave us instructions to follow up with the orthopedic on Monday.

After being there 3 hours, we were free to leave.

 

(UPDATE: She did get a cast put on by the orthopedic that she needed to wear for 10 days-it didn’t slow her down one bit)