Well, it finally happened. My three-year-old broker her arm!
I was downstairs with some neighbors that we had over for drinks when I hear a horrible scream coming from upstairs. This was after I had been up there several times telling the girls (who share a room) that they needed to be quiet. So I headed upstairs ready to tan some hides...
I was met in the hallway by my older two daughters coming out of their room, the younger one crying. I gave her a hug and asked her what was wrong when she showed me her arm. It looked like it had an extra elbow in it! I immediately picked her up, took her downstairs, and told my wife that I was taking her to the emergency room. I showed her a quick glimpse of the arm and then took her to the car, scrambled to put some shoes on, get my wallet and keys, and then sped to the closest children's hospital.
When we got there, they weighed her, gave her a shot of morphine, and told me that they didn't have the capability to set it correctly. So after they put a splint on her arm and took some x-rays, I sped down to Scottish Rite, near I-285 and GA 400 (which is about 25 miles from home). The first place I went to was a satellite office, so they sent the x-rays on ahead. On 400 south, I almost got into a wreck because of some idiots in front of me who didn't know how to merge!
[As an aside, if you are right next to someone and your lane is ending, you need to either speed up or slow down to get over into the lane next to you. Actually, that wasn't the problem. It was the idiot in the lane that
wasn't ending who was ALSO slowing down, even though there was no one in front! That was the car that I was behind when I noticed that there was no way I could stop in time to avoid becoming a fixture on his (or her) back bumper, so I took a brief glance at my right rearview mirror (it was the left lane that was closing), didn't see anyone, and swerved around them. The V8 in the Ford Expedition failed me not, and I was back on my way to take care of my little girl without a scratch.]
I had been to Scottish Rite before, so I pulled into the same entrance I was used to pulling into. However, as I found out later, it was not the emergency entrance. I had to walk down several halls, go down the elevator, and then walk some more, only to find myself in the back entrance of the emergency room. They were a little busy, but they put us in a room right away and proceeded to triage her.
They had some ladies on staff whose job it was to make the kids feel better about being there--for instance they showed us the "special straw" that they were going to put into my little girl's hand so that her hand could drink up some medicine. My personal feeling is that they were more annoying than anything else--my daughter is 3 years old, after all--she doesn't like strangers in her face telling her things she doesn't know anything about. All my daughter knew was that something was wrong with her arm, and then some other people stuck her in the leg with a needle (for the morphine). But one cool thing was that they had a Viewmaster with them that my daughter was watching while they inserted the catheter, so that worked out pretty well. They asked her what color cast she wanted--red, blue, pink, or purple (whatever happened to white?), and she chose pink--her favorite color. Not that she knew what a cast was!
They decided that in order to set her arm correctly that they would sedate her, which I don't blame them for. I would have wanted to be sedated, too! Also, they used some sort of continuous x-ray to make sure that the bones were aligning correctly, so they didn't allow me in the room for that part, which was fine--my daughter was knocked out anyway--so I called Melissa to let her know what was going on.
A few minutes later they came to get me, and there was my daughter, still groggy, with a hot pink cast on her arm, but at least her arm was straight again. They showed me the x-rays of her arm, and I must say that I was impressed--they got it about as straight as was possible! [I
still have a bump on my arm from when I broke it back in 1976!]
So now, a few days later, she's getting around pretty well. Almost too well--we have to slow her down a bit to keep from knocking her arm up even more! She still asks what that "thing" is on her arm and why it has to be there. I just explain that her bones broke and the cast is there to take the place of her bones until they heal. I don't think it has quite sunk in, though, yet. It may not.
So there's my story. After talking to my oldest daughter I got what I think is the rest of the story. Emmie had piled a bunch of stuff on top of her bed and then either jumped of lost her balance and fell off. She broke bother her ulna and radius of her left arm, about midway between her wrist and elbow. It was pretty nasty looking, and I still get the willies when I think about it! Arms just don't bend that way naturally!
One final note: We have some friends who have a 3-year-old son who plays with Emmie, and when they told him that Emmie broke her arm because she fell off the bed, he got so scared that he won't get back in his bed. He's been sleeping in his crib!
Posts
