Broken Arm

Yesterday started off good, with Emerson’s second day at puzzle camp, and Addison back at East Hill.

I shared my May reading tracker…

And Emerson spent the afternoon with Nana again, and they very nicely went by our library to pick up these two books I had on hold, before my hold elapsed and I lost them…

I had made chicken teriyaki in the crockpot in the morning, so we had that with some rice and broccoli for dinner after work. Then Emerson went back to Trousdell for her first gymnastics class in the summer session. (She couldn’t find a leotard that fit, so she wore this comfy outfit, and I thought she still looked so cute and athletic.)

But about 30 minutes into the class, she had an accident on the un-even bars, fell off backwards, and landed on her right arm with it kinda stuck behind her. I actually couldn’t see it from where I was sitting, but I heard her cry out and scream, and it just sounded different (I know you mama’s know what I mean), so I literally threw my book down and went running across the gym and out onto the floor. She was crying and in severe pain, and we didn’t even know what happened at first. I checked on her and helped her calm down, and we identified it was her arm & shoulder that was in the most pain. Eventually, I ran back to get my phone, called my parents to come help rescue us, and called Jeff to let him know what was going on, but I told him he could stay home with Addie since it was her bedtime. It took us a very long time to get her arm even slightly, badly splinted, so that we could stand her up and get her into the car. But these three gym employees were all very sweet and patient and worked so well to take care of her.

We got out of the gym around 8:30, and went to the Northside ER. They got us back into a room pretty quickly, and then shortly after that they took her upstairs for x-rays around 9:30pm. The two guys that were working with her were great, super gentle and moving slow, and constantly checking in with her to make sure she was doing okay.

And then by 10pm, the doctor was coming back confirming what we were afraid of, that she had broken a bone in her upper arm. Officially, the paperwork says it’s a “closed fracture of proximal end of right humerus.” I had kind of been “hoping” it was just popped out of the socket or something less intense, but of course we weren’t that lucky… My poor girl has her first broken bone! I have personally never had a broken bone, so I don’t know how she feels, but I do know she’s in a lot of pain.

They didn’t have any slings that fit her size, but they did the best they could to make the adult-size one work temporarily.

She was so exhausted by the time we got home a little after 11pm, so we propped her up in the corner of her bed, with an extra, large pillow on her side to keep her from rolling over. And thankfully, she actually slept all through the night, and didn’t wake up until about 7:15am this morning. I actually stayed in her room with her until about midnight, making sure she was okay. And so I didn’t blog all of this last night, since it was so late.

WEDNESDAY

Then first thing this morning, I called TOC to make a follow-up appointment with the pediatric orthopedist at TOC. They were able to get us in at 9:30, and Grammy offered to meet us there, since Emmie said she wanted her to join us. We ended up seeing the PA there, which coincidentally, is someone I knew from back in the day at NFC, and was a Growing Room parent we used to see there every day.

So the good and the bad news is that she doesn’t have to get a cast. That’s good, because the sling is easy, but bad, because she’s not completely immobilized for the duration of the healing period. But it also means she doesn’t have to totally avoid water all summer either, since it’s an 8-week healing time-line. (But it obviously means she’s out of gymnastics the whole summer now too.)

So the doctor said this is basically the best bone to break basically, because of how great of a job it does at healing itself, especially for young kids like this. It’ll take about three weeks for the pain to totally go away, but eight weeks total until it’s completely healed. So even after she doesn’t have the pain, she’ll continue to wear the sling, as a reminder to herself and others that she’s still healing. So we got her fitted for a smaller sling, that’s nicer, comfier, and fits so much better than the one from the ER last night.

Emmie left TOC with Grammy, and they actually went on a few errands together, while I also went on a few errands, and also took a tiny walk in a park to find a Little Free Library I’d never visited before.

Grammy and Emmie picked up Ellie from her Young Actor’s camp she’s doing this week, and went through the Chick-fil-A drive through to pick up lunch. Then since I had the day off already, I went out to Grammy’s house to spend the afternoon with Grammy, Ellie, Emmie and Papa who was working from home. We decided she could get in the pool with the extra brace on her arm, since it was a chill afternoon and she could kind of just wade around in the shallow end. And she did really well with that for a bit.

Then it was afternoon at-home iced latte and snack time, and the little girls even wanted to have an iced coffee of their own. So grammy brewed one cup, and split it between the two of them, with lots of creamer.

I picked up Addie late this afternoon, we had a quick dinner, and then we attempted to go to church. First though, Addie wanted to wear her “church” shoes, so she picked this fancy dress to go with her fancy heels for the night.

Emerson went to a meeting for the kids going to kids camp next week, but then she was so tired and wanted to go home. First though, we spent some time talking to Aunt Meggie about how Emerson could modify and adjust her activities at kids camp next week, if she still wants to try to go. As of right now, she thinks she wants to try, but we’re going to pray about that over the next few days. They’re supposed to leave Sunday afternoon, and come back Wednesday. We’ll see how things play out though by then…

Please, please be praying for Emerson’s arm to heal as quickly as possible, and to take away the pain as quickly as possible. It’s her right arm, and of course she’s right-handed, so she’s already trying to learn to do things with her left hand, and that’s tricky. But other things, like changing clothes, are still very tricky, and often results in a huge spike in pain as well. She’s gonna try to go back to puzzle camp tomorrow too (out of all the camps, that one is probably the most tame and she should be fine), so we’re praying she makes it through that tomorrow.

Overall, she’s actually stayed in pretty good spirits throughout today, but she’s still had lots of pain on and off, and has just been a little down about things occasionally. So we’re praying for physical healing, and also her emotional stability as well.