One year later

It was a nice spring like afternoon and I was remarking to my friend and coworker on the playground at school that one year ago I was having my shoulder manipulated to get it unfrozen.  I was silently grateful and felt a sense of relief to be a year past that place.  A place of daily physical therapy and a better, but still not very functional right shoulder. One year later it is so much better - almost normal - but honestly,  I don't think it will ever be normal again and for some reason my scapula bone is still totally messed up.

As I said it was a nice spring day and we were just finishing dinner and Evan and Hailey were anxious to ride their bikes.  The bikes had come out of the shed a few days before and they were loving riding up and down the street on them and we were loving the fact that they were outside and getting exercise and wearing themselves out.  Evan was gearing up and Hailey was already outside riding when I went to the picture window to look out for her and saw her come around the car in the driveway crying her eyes out and holding her arm.

I looked at Trent and said "Uh Oh" and we both ran outside.  She was crying really hard almost on the verge of hysterics and it was hard to figure out what happened.  I noticed a scrape with some blood on her palm and she had dirt all over her pants and coat.  We got her in the house and sat her on the couch and she proceeded to cry and carry on. She normally gets over stuff pretty quickly so this was a bit out of her wheelhouse.  I didn't know if she was badly hurt, super tired or a combination of both.  After she settled down a bit she told us she was riding her bike down the neighbor's driveway which is pretty steep and she lost control and went over a two foot retaining wall into the gravel parking spot they have.  She was trying to be very brave but kept insisting that her arm hurt really bad.  She didn't want us to touch it or try to move it.  She could move her fingers and she could move her arm a little.  The fact that she seemed to be able to move it made me think it wasn't broken - maybe sprained or jammed or something.  She kept saying that it hurt bad and when I brought up the idea of the hospital for xrays she told me she thought it was getting better.  We let her lay on the couch and watch a Mo Willems DVD from the library in hopes that would calm her. 

While she was watching the movie she started getting hysterical again saying her arm hurt super bad and that maybe the xray was a good idea.  If she was into the idea of the doctor - I figured it must really hurt her.  Spencer had to be downtown for a rehearsal so I ran him there while Trent got her loaded up in the other car for the ER.  After I dropped off Spencer I rushed to the ER where she had been admitted and was hanging out in her cubby.  

They did xrays on her (which were not a fun experience) having to twist and manipulate an already sore arm.  I am glad that Daddy was the one that went back with her to radiation.  Not too long after that a guy (not sure what he was nurse, PA, cast making guy?) came in and put her arm into a long cast mold and wrapped it up in bandages and gave her a sling.  I still didn't think it was broken because Spencer had a similar get up when his elbow was dislocated, but the doctor came in shortly after and informed us that she had broken both her ulna and radius in her forearm. 

She was a trooper and so brave through the whole ordeal.  The ER doctor had conferred with a orthopedic doctor that was on call - this is where the irony comes in - the same orthopedic doctor that did my manipulation the year before and she was to see him the next day. 

While we were sitting and waiting for our discharge papers she looked at her arm all bandaged and casted and slinged up and asked if she had to wear it to school.  When I told her of course she did because it had to get better she started to cry.  It just broke my heart.  She is a very timid little girl and she doesn't really like to draw attention to herself and I think the part about people looking at her freaked her out more than any pain she felt. I reassured her that she wouldn't be going to school the next day and that eased her mind for the time being.

The next day the ortho doctor took off the cast and bandages and told her to just wear the sling for the next two weeks and then she will come in to be re-xrayed and reevaluated.  She is supposed to try to move it as much as she can when she feels brave enough.  I took a photo of the xray of her arm but I couldn't even tell you where the breaks are.  They look nothing like movie xrays with jagged bones sticking out all over.

When we got home I was reading her all the comments about her accident on Facebook and Evan came home with a get well card signed by all the kids on the bus.  Her good friend Addison stopped by to bring her a get well stuffed bunny.  When she heard how many people were worried about her she couldn't wait to go to school on Friday.  I was so thankful for that.  She has been a trooper through this whole ordeal.  I know she still has pain, but she rarely complains.  Every once in a while she will ask if she can have some Tylenol because it hurts too much.  I feel so bad that this had to happen to her but also very grateful because it could have been so much worse.