Broken Arm

My four-year-old Blossom broke her arm at the park. "The worst open reduction I've ever performed." the orthopedest (sp?) said.

She's okay, but still in a lot of pain. Vomit and tears and codine.

I'll probably be MIA for a few days.

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Update:
The codine was bad. We've had much better luck with ibuprophen. She's a hurler anyway, she ralfs if she coughs, she up-chucks if she cries too hard.

I can't believe how fast these kids bounce back. Today has been, "no, you can't swing, no don't jump off the couch."

It unfolded like this. I was telling my girlfriends at that park about my morbid fear of water ever since I had children, when some mother yelled, "Is this your daughter?" and I looked up and she was crying. For a spilt second I thought her feelings were hurt, but then the air shifted and went taut and my walk turned to a run. And I heard, "her arm is broken," and indeed it was hanging at the most unnatural angle.

Very, very, very broken. My friend took the two babies (thank goodness for friends) and I took some deep breaths hoping to collect myself to drive my screaming-in-agony child to the doctor without running into a telephone pole or a busload full of kindergarteners. I took her to a doc-in-the-box first, because it was just across the street and the ER was much further. I parked illegally right in front of the entrance and ran inside and it looked abandoned. "hello," I screamed, "is anyone here? Hello?" The guy in the waiting room looked at me like I was nuts on a stick. "hello? hello?" about ten hours after I walked in the door and made enough racket to wake a bear in January, a receptionist saunters out, gives me a look and said, "Yes?" like I had disturbed her coffee break.
"Do you do broken bones here?"
"yes."

So I ran back out to my car, and had to take Blossom out of her car seat again, with the straps, the horrid straps, and bring her into the doc-in-the-box whimpering, and it was abandoned again. Not a soul in site. "Hello?" I start screaming again, "hello!!!" Finally she emerges from the depths again takes one look at the third elbow and finally takes some action . . . which was of course . . . handing me paper work.

I wanted to shove that clip board down her throat until it came out the other end.

Ah hem, where was I?

Finally some people start emerging, including a PA, who said, "I don't think we can do that here. You better take that to the ER, they may need to call in an orthopedest (sp?)." (He was correct.) So they put her arm in a sling with some ice, and I had to put her back in her car seat with the straps, the horrible, horrible straps. And I hit every blasted red light. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. While my baby, whimpered, and cried, and screamed, and asked me over and over again, "Mommy are they going to cut off my arm?" "No, they won't cut it off baby." "Mommy, please don't let them cut off my arm." "They won't cut it off." "Mommy it hurts. Oh mommy, it hurts." "I'm so sorry baby."

After the longest car ride ever, I arrived at the ER at the same time as the dh (who works clear on the very furthest other end of Boise) who carried her inside. The first question was "Are you sure the arm is broken?" until they looked under the ice pack, at which point they rushed us to a room number five and gave my baby some morphine. I love Morphine!!! Anyway, wait, wait, x-rays, wait, wait. X-rays showed that it broke a few inches above the elbow, and the bones were no longer anywhere near each other. Call in a specialist, schedule surgery in a few hours, wait, wait. Watch them prep my baby for the OR, and she was so brave.

The doctor said the surgery would last for a half-hour to forty-five minutes. Two hours and three pins in my baby's arm later he emerged. "It was a tough one." he said over and over.

They we watched my baby wake up crying and disoriented and scared. She was so confused. She thought it wouldn't hurt anymore I think, she thought fixed meant that the pain would be gone. "It still hurts, it still hurts!" My poor baby. And I wanted to rip their throats out for not giving her more drugs. And then vomit, vomit and more vomit.

Vomit in the car on the way home. Vomit all over my clean sheets. Vomit on her only sling. Did I say vomit?

But it's all okay today. She's as happy as a clam and only thinks about it rarely. But still, she has decided she never wants to go to the park, never again.