Poor Erica

I got a call Friday morning from the secretary at school. "Erica fell doing a cartwheel at recess and hurt her arm. You will want to come down here."

Is it broken? I ask.

"I'm not medically trained but it doesn't look right. You just need to come to the office. We have ice on it. It definitely doesn't look right."

I loaded James into the car and we went. As soon as I walked into the office and saw her sitting on the bench, she began to cry. This is what I saw.

You know that weird half nauseous/half crisis mode moms get when there's something scary but they know they have to handle it? I got that. I wrapped an ace bandage around her like the novice that I am and I walked her to the car. I dropped James off at Justin's parents and we went to the urgent care center in Spanish Fork. It looked dislocated or broken to me and figured urgent care could put a cast on her or put the bones back into the joint.

I was wrong. 

The urgent care doctor sent us down the hall to radiology for a series of xrays. The radiology tech took one look at the first x-ray and said, "Um, I'm gonna go grab the doctor."

It was dislocated and badly. The doctor said she was hoping for a break because they could set that themselves. For her dislocation they said we had to go to the emergency room because she would have to be sedated to correct it.

Cue level up of nausea/crisis mode. 

I was a teensy bit relieved about the sedation part. What little I've heard of dislocations--the popping back in is super painful. 

So we went across the highway to the Spanish Fork hospital. On the way I called Justin to tell him what was going on. He and Sarah and Henry were hunting in Wyoming. 

We got the ER and they put her in a wheelchair and we waited. Then a nurse came to get us to get her weight and height and hear from her what happened. (I felt a little scrutiny from the staff with it being a child injury and all. I could see their demeanor change when she told them it happened at school.) Keep in mind she can barely string a sentence together she's in so much pain.

The doctor came by (we're in a triage corner of the ER) and approved pain medicine for her. She got fentanyl up her nose. We waited a few minutes for that to kick in and then they wheeled her down to radiology. Again. X-rays just about made her pass out at urgent care and she was about to break down again. I don't think the pain medicine had done anything at this point.

After 10 minutes of her gasping every time they reposition her arm (they were being careful but sheesh) they sent us back to the waiting room because there were no available rooms. There were lots of empty rooms--I think it was a staffing issue.

I gave her my phone and she watched Tangled. Then she got thirsty. She complained more about being thirsty than she cried about her arm. The nurse told me it was the fentanyl and that they couldn't give her anything to eat or drink until after the procedure. I hadn't had anything to eat yet but I wasn't about to eat or drink in front of her so we toughed it out together. She zoned into her show. I put my head in my hands and tried to be patient. I grew anxious waiting and watching the clock.

Finally at like 2:30 they wheeled her into a room and got her settled in a bed.

Nurse Cami removed her shirt to put 3 monitors on her chest. They put an oximeter on her right toe and a blood pressure cuff on her left calf. Then they put in the IV on her left arm. She broke down and sobbed and begged for them to stop and it broke my heart. I cradled her head in my hands and told her how brave she was and it was going to be over soon. 

It wasn't over soon. Rhett the respiratory therapist came in next and put an oxygen tube on her nose. It wasn't pumping oxygen actually, just monitoring the CO2 she was exhaling. He told me about the sedation drug they were going to give her and how it wouldn't affect her breathing. "It's a miracle drug, actually. She will breathe on her own. It will only last 20 minutes and she'll appear as if she is semi-conscious but she won't remember anything." 

Finally at like 3:15 the team of doctors and nurses assembled in her room. There was Dr. Royall, the respiratory therapist, her nurse and 2 more nurses or assistants plus someone from radiology that wheeled in a portable x-ray machine. They all suited up in lead apron because they were going to take pictures of her arm as they went to make sure they got it right. I asked Erica to look up from my phone to see the team around her to help her. "You're kind of a big deal." She didn't look up. She was coping with the stress by ignoring what was going around her. I don't blame her.

The nurse put the sedation drug into her IV and the doctor began asking her some questions about Bluey. Her eyes instantly glazed over, she stared straight ahead and rested her head back. They reclined her bed. I swiftly took my phone from her hands and walked out of the room.

I sat in a chair across from her door and texted Justin at 3:21 "I'm out in the hall waiting now. I hate this." A kindly old doctor walked passed and asked if I was okay. "Yes," I said, sounding anything but.

Maybe 15 minutes later a few of the team exited the room and a nurse waved me in. Dr. Royall was talking to her, trying to get her to respond. I took her hand and did the same. Her right arm was splinted armpit to hand.

Then things turned weird and sometimes funny. The sedation medicine made her groggy, confused and angry. She started saying "I want this to be over. I want this to be over." Then she began demanding the nurse detach all the wires from her. "Take this off! I want this off now!" We told her we couldn't quite yet. Then she sat up and yelled, "I want to wake up!" You are awake sweetie, it's just the medicine wearing off. She was super grumpy and rude to all the nurses that were asking about her pain. When the radiologist came back in to take another picture, she told her no. It would have been funny if she wasn't in so much distress.

The nurse had to monitor for like an hour to make sure she didn't pass out or something and then we had to wait for the doctor to come in with the discharge papers. The nurse finally detached all the wires and monitors and IV and I got her dressed and we were free. It was close to 5 o'clock. She fell at 10:30 that morning.

She threw up once in the parking lot and then again inside Macey's while we were waiting at the pharmacy. I probably looked like a crazy lady with my lawn mowing clothes and hat on with a girl in the cart with a hospital band on one wrist and her shirt pulled down around her splinted arm. She wanted a Lunchable really badly. And a doughnut. And orange creamsicles. You got it!

We took these pictures to send to Justin and the other kids. They were so worried about her. She's smiling but only for these pictures. 

She laid her head on the table and slowly ate her crackers and cheese. She was calm and out of pain so I asked her just what happened. All day we were all functioning under the information of "fell while doing a cartwheel." 

"I was doing a cartwheel and I just put my hands down and the grass was wet so my hand slipped and I landed on my elbow. I didn't hear a weird sound or anything. I knew something was wrong and I laid there while Delaney ran to get Mr. Curtis. He walked me to the office. I knew that morning something bad was going to happen."

After resting on the couch I got her settled into bed. It took a long time to calm her down and to find a position that was comfortable. She was so tired but upset.

She was really bummed we didn't get to go to the movies that afternoon like we planned. She asked about it several times. We went the next afternoon instead.

This morning Justin met us at the pediatric orthopedic surgeon in Provo. They did more x-rays to make sure there weren't any fractures. There was something that wasn't ossifying like they wanted and the PA conferred with the surgeon for a moment to discuss surgery. That was a stressful few minutes. But he came back in and said she wouldn't need surgery.

Just a pink cast for 2 weeks.

She was so afraid for them to take the splint off. They had a hard time getting her to relax. But she was so excited to get a cast. Is there anything cooler in second grade than a cast?

Her entire class has signed it ("Except for 5 people but I don't want 3 of them to"). She complains that it's hot and itchy but she is more confident moving around now that she is more protected. She was so nervous with just the splint and rightly so on several occasions when James wasn't so careful. We go back the day before Thanksgiving to get it off. 

*****

As we were driving past the hospital the day after her accident on our way to the movie theater, she said she didn't want to get any closer to the hospital. "That was a really bad day." It was, I told her. But it was also a day of pretty amazing things that we can be grateful for. Doctors and nurses that knew just what to do to fix her, medicines and procedures to take her pain away. What would I have done for you? Tried to put it back in myself and hurt you so bad and made it worse. I shudder at the thought. Then we started thinking of other things that worked out. We live pretty close to urgent care and the ER. The weather was calm and clear and made driving to the hospital pretty uneventful (except for some rough RR crossings. Ouch!) Nana was home and able to take James all day. And I had every intention of mowing the lawn during the time that the school office called me but I kept getting distracted by things to do in the house. If I was mowing the lawn, I wouldn't have heard their call and you would have waited for me to come but for some reason, I kept getting sidetracked. 

So instead of looking back and thinking of it as being a terrible experience, we can have mixed feelings. We can mix gratitude with stress and strength with fear. I prayed for peace and comfort for both of us just about every chance I got in the hospital that day. I never felt it. I never saw it in her either. I cried for it that night as the weight and stress and fear came full force as I replayed the events of the day and I couldn't sleep. At about 5 am when I thought I would go mad, a small suggestion entered my mind. "Go check on her. Go see that she is all right." I went into her room just as she was stirring. She saw me and woke fully. I don't know if she could see my puffy eyes and tear stained cheeks or hear the emotion in my voice. She was calm and told me that she was sleeping okay, her arm didn't hurt. She was excited to show Dad her splint and talk to Henry again. She talked and talked and I felt the worry drain from me. I tucked her in and went back to bed and slept dreamlessly. 

God answers prayers but He also lets us feel all the feels.