Day 108 marks a first for us: our kids' first major injury that had us in the ER for the entire day.
Wednesday is our day off preschool so after breakfast we made a quick decision to get dressed and head to the zoo. We were in my room, I was getting ready and the boys were playing. Carson asked to play with my necklace, I said no and apparently he decided to climb up on the dresser anyway. Unfortunately when I saw him up there I told him to get down, but it startled him and his knee slipped, causing him to fall right down hands and knees. I legitimately cannot get that image out of my head. I ran over hoping not to find what I found. His arm by his wrist was obviously going the wrong way. I panicked and really didn't know what to do first. I didn't even know what hospital was covered on our insurance! Duh me. I called Carl and we decided to head to the ER at Children's.
Sorry for the graphic nature of this programming.......but wow.
Both the tibia and fibula completely broke and were off to the side. This was no hairline baby break. And of course it is his right arm...... GRRRRR!
His very first question when I told him we were going to the hospital was if he had to get a shot. He was more upset about having an IV than the actual injury. But I can't blame him because I absolutely LOATHED my IVs when I had the boys.
He headed off for xrays with Daddy and came back with a new car and Spiderman stickers. This is his "brave face".
It was fascinating to see this normally hyper kid lay there for almost 7 hours straight. He knew what was happening and was beyond cooperative, more than I ever expected out of him. We spoke with ortho and decided the best option was to do a reduction which puts the bones back in place, but that meant he would be sedated. Because he had had breakfast at 8am we couldn't do the procedure before noon so there was a lot of sitting around keeping him comfortable and Max entertained. The morphine helped the pain, but he did so much better than I could have asked for.
Finally at 1pm the team was ready and we had to leave the room. Sedating them is such a tough thing to watch! If it weren't for all the horror stories and "worst case scenarios" it may not be so bad. But they said he did awesome and even was singing toward the end. When we went in he was saying some random things and eventually slept for 45 minutes.
He begged for water all morning so he got a popsicle as soon as he really woke up. After morphine and sedation he had the funniest sleepy eyes though. His blinks were the heaviest ever, but he said it didn't hurt after he came to.
He specifically requested a dark blue cast. But at first we had to explain to him what a cast even was and that he'd get to draw on it. His drugged upset response was, "But we didn't bring any crayons!!"
Follow up X-ray.
Then there was poor Max. He wanted to run and play so bad, but couldn't for obvious reasons. He slept on me for about 30 minutes in the morning and Carl got him to crash for about 20 minutes while Carson was sleeping. He is such a good baby and I love being able to take him anywhere with us. But don't get me wrong, if Carl wasn't there with me to help I would have been having a total meltdown!
And the brave face when we told him it was time to go home.
He crashed before we were out of the parking lot.
So, it all just seemed like way more to endure than you should for a broken arm. By the time we got home we were totally emotionally drained and exhausted. I think if you have a planned surgery or something you can mentally prepare a little, but this was a full shock of adrenaline and then emotional crashes!
The boys slept good during the night, all things considered and are napping right now (which is how I have time to post this). We're doing lots of snuggling today since he has to keep it elevated. No preschool this week! Oh, and as the doctors were getting ready to sedate him yesterday I got a full migraine aura. I've had one aura in my life about 10 years ago. But for the last month I've gotten at least 10 migraine headaches without auras during the night. I was freaking out that I would get the headache in the middle of this ordeal, but it never came. It had to have been from stress, but I'm a little worried about what's happening with my body right now.
Side note: I'm SO happy I had my camera already in my bag. We took lots of phone pics too, but I would have been bummed if I hadn't been able to document this big first. It's sad, but a big memory nonetheless.
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