Two weeks ago K was begging us all week to walk down to the community park so he could show us that he has not only learned, but mastered doing the monkey bars. School gets out so late and he is notorious for dorking around. Meaning that it takes him FOREVER to do his two worksheets that he gets every day as homework. So by the time he's finally done with homework dinner is already made so going to the park on a school night doesn't work. Last Friday there was no homework! We walked down to the park to see K and his bad self show off his monkey bar skills. He did it! He did it over and over and over. He loved it. B gave the kiddos a five minute warning before we went home to eat dinner. K said that he wanted to do the monkey bars one last time. He made it across to the little platform thing. He turned around and told me that he was going to do it back. Of course on his last trip across he fell. As soon as he landed and made the awful sound, I knew he had broken his arm. I went over to him as his right arm flopped off his stomach. I took one look at his arm and had to remind myself to breath. His arm was obviously broken. His elbow was bending the wrong way and his wrist was bumpy in places that it shouldn't be bumpy. I am so so thankful that B was there with us. I was feeling so lightheaded that all I could do was yell,"Look at that arm!" I truly gagged as I walked away. I am not one to be able to stomach such disgusting things. NASTY! B came over in lightning speed and just scooped K up and told us that he was taking him home. I put the baby in the stroller and M took K's bike and off we went. The ride to the hospital was so sad. He just cried silently as he laid his head on my shoulder(well, as good as he could in his booster seat. I was kneeling next to him on the floor of the car.) He would say,"mommy, my arm hurts." It was heartbreaking.
His arm must have moved as we were driving because at the park it looked a lot worse. He laid on the bed in the E.R like a champ! Thankfully Curious George was on TV so he was able to keep his mind off of his arm.
Clearly this is his wrist. Maybe they shouldn't send us a Radiology bill since it doesn't take a Dr to know that it's broken. He broke both the bones in his wrist. When he put his hand down to catch himself when he fell, he snapped these bones, they pushed up and
Broke his elbow in two places. This one is harder to see. Look at the ball of bone, go up to the dark white line. To the left of that line there is a crack. The other crack is to the right of the dark white line. OW! You would think that we've never given this child anything with calcium in his entire life. We have and we do every day! He just landed wrong and did a great job of breaking his arm. Go big or go home right?!
The E.R. Dr came in and told us that he had called the Orthopedic Surgeon that was on call. The Surgeon had told him to tell us to be there at 7:00 the next morning so he could do surgery. So, not only did he brake it, he had to have surgery to fix it. I understand that the bone wasn't out of the skin and that there was no internal bleeding. I also get that K's life wasn't in danger. What I want to know is why they couldn't do the surgery that night? I get that K had had some water and a fruit leather but by the time the Dr had gotten there and they were ready to go back, it would have been probably close to five hours since he had had anything to eat or drink. B tried to defend the Dr by saying since it wasn't a true emergency they probably didn't want to call everyone in. My rebuttal was that they were going to have to call everyone in on Saturday morning. I said that the Surgeon probably had plans and didn't want to cancel them. Maybe his wife had told him that if he cancels on her, his toast. So, we went home. Needless to say it was a pretty sleepless night for some of the folks that live in our house. he slept pretty good until 3. Then he couldn't sleep. He wanted me to lay on his bed with him. So, I was holding him as best I could without moving his arm. He was laying on his side, I was behind him with my arm around him. He was supposed to keep his arm elevated, so he was resting his arm on my arm. I could fill him finally starting to twitch, like he was falling asleep. All the sudden he jumped, his arm flew up in the air and he started to cry. I pulled him in close and asked if he was ok. He wrapped his other arm around my neck and as he cried he said,"I had a dream that I was falling off the monkey bars." I had tried to not let him see me cry because I knew that would just make him freak out even more, but when he said that I couldn't help it. We both laid there and cried. It was so sad. He couldn't have any medicine after midnight, so he cried a lot and said that his arm hurt a lot. Finally at five I asked him if he wanted to watch a show. Thank goodness for Disney channel! We were able to watch Phines and Ferb. He actually laughed a couple times.
We don't feel like we know a lot of people round these parts yet. I had asked B what we were going to do about K having surgery. He said that we could switch off, but I wanted to be with K the whole time. I also wanted B to be with us. I prayed and prayed to know who I could call in our ward to watch M and the baby while we were doing K's surgery. I felt so bad asking anyone because I knew that it would take most of their Saturday. I was longing for family or the close friends that we have to live close so that I wouldn't have to worry so much about it. The names of three families came into my mind. Heaven knows that I have a really hard time trusting people when it comes to watching our kids. I reminded Heavenly Father of that(like He needs reminding!...) The same three names were in my mind. I mustered up all of my courage and called a family. I have talked to this lady twice. I honestly didn't know if she would even remember who I was. I told her the whole thing, she asked what time the surgery was. I told her 7, so we would have to drop the other two off at 6:40. That's so early! She told me that was fine, she would be awake anyway because she was going to the gym. Bless her! For being willing to watch our kids when she doesn't even know us and for working out on a Saturday morning! There are limits to my working out and doing it on a Saturday morning is one of them! I am so thankful for ward families and that no matter where you go, there are people in your ward that are willing and able to help even if they don't know you!
He really didn't like the "party hat" that they had given him to wear. It didn't help that he hadn't been able to eat breakfast, have medicine or sleep. He was less than excited to be there. I asked him if he could at least try to be a little happy for the picture. Even a little half smile, he shook his head and stared straight ahead.
M.J was the CRNA on call. When she walked into the room and saw B she smiled and said in her very southern accent, "Well I didn't know it was your kid! They should have told me. Go change into scrubs and you can come back with us until he's asleep, then we'll kick you out so the Dr can do his thing. Would that be ok with you Tyler?" She kept calling him Tyler, he would just look at me, shake his head and smile. As soon as K knew that they were going to let B go with him AND he didn't have to wear his "party hat" he was able to smile a little.
B took a picture of him while he was asleep. I think it's awesome that they let him go back. He said that K did great, that he hadn't cried or anything. I think that was because B was with him.
I'm pretty sure that surgery should be deemed as false advertising. He thought that once he had the surgery, his arm wouldn't hurt any more. So when he woke up and his arm still hurt, he was not happy. I felt so bad for him. They gave him a lot of morphine. I don't know how much but B says that it was a lot for a Little kid. Thankfully the surgeon didn't have to cut K open, he just popped the bones back into place. Just thinking about how awful that must sound and how painful that must be gives me full body chills and makes me a little lightheaded.
He is supposed to sleep with his arm elevated to help with swelling. We thought that using a boppy would help because he could lay in the opening and have his arm up. This is usually what I find when I go check on him at night. Needless to say it took a couple days longer for the swelling to go down because he didn't use the boppy for his arm.
He loves his blue cast! It took 4-5 days for him to stop saying that his arm hurt and not wanting medicine every six hours. Maybe it was the blue cast that helped. The hospital didn't have colors, so he had a white cast until his follow up appointment. Blue anything makes this kid happy. Of course it was his right had, so now he gets to write with his left hand, which is interesting to say the least. Of course it happened three days before we were out of the 30 day waiting period for our insurance to kick in, but we are so thankful that he was able to be asleep while his bones were popped back into place and that a week later he is his happy self even though he milks his cast and acts like he is a cripple.
