I stepped over a new threshold of parenting today. I know every parent does this at one point or another, but we made it almost six years without it. Today it happened. We made a visit to the ER. I was sure Ashton would be the first child to take us there since he’s the crazy one, but I was wrong. It was London. The short story is, she has a broken elbow. Big time. If you want to know more, read on. I won’t be offended if you don’t want to hear the whole story, though (but at least look at the x-ray picture. It’s quite impressive).
We had just gotten home from church and I was getting dinner ready (which now reminds me that I still have the chicken in the crock pot. I better do something about that sometime soon) and the kids were playing in the living room. They had 3 large food storage cans that they were stacking and playing with in the living room. I had given them specific directions not to stand on them. I heard a scream. I didn’t think anything of it, since I hear screams a lot around here. London’s a little over dramatic about small owies sometimes. But the screaming persisted so I decided to take a look. I was completely shocked as to what I saw. I can’t say that I reacted the way that I would have hoped I would in this situation. I just didn’t know what to do. I covered my mouth because that was just the reaction I had. Taylor ran to her and helped her a lot more than I did. We piled in the car and drove to the hospital. I didn’t think to grab snacks or water or even to call anybody to take Ashton. We just went to the hospital. On the way to the hospital, I asked London what happened. Through her tears she said, “I have to tell you that I was being disobedient.” She somehow fell off one of the cans that she was told not to stand on. It wasn’t until we were in x-ray that I heard the whole story. She was jumping from a can to the couch and she missed the couch. Anyway, once we got to the ER and checked in at the front window, they took her right back. At least we didn’t have to wait for hours in the waiting room. We did enough waiting elsewhere.
Once in a bed, the nurse came and checked her out. Then the doctor came in. Without touching it or hardly even looking at it he said, “Oh, it’s definitely broken. I’ve been doing this for a long time and it’s broken.” He mentioned later that whenever you see swelling in the elbow, it’s broken. Then, of course, they sent us back to x-ray. That’s where we found out how broken it really was. It had dislocated and broken off fragments of bone along the way.
It needed to be re-set (obviously) and also needed a couple of pins to keep it in place. They told us that surgery would happen between 4 and 5. It was about 2:30 or 3. So we waited. The surgeon came down and talked to us. We talked to the doctor. We talked to more nurses. We signed paperwork. We waited some more. Finally they wheeled her bed up to surgery. When she was finally prepped and ready to go in, it was almost 6:00. We had been there since 12:45 or so. We hadn’t eaten and Ashton was tired.
While London was in surgery, the rest of us came home, scarfed down some hot dogs (since I never was able to get dinner made) and packed up a few necessities and drove back to the hospital. We got there just after she came out of surgery and was waking up. Things went well. They were able to place everything right and stick in the pins without having to make an incision. In fact, they told us it would be a couple of hours but it didn’t take more than an hour. Now she’s in recovery (hopefully sleeping) in pediatrics. Taylor’s there with her and they will both spend the night.
She got a singing Ariel from the nurses. Who needs stickers? We got about 20 of them too.
So much for swimming lessons and beach days . . .
