When a Mother's Heart Breaks

Well, let's see...Cassie and Conrey were really wound up this morning. I kept telling them to not run. About 3 minutes before I heard a thud, I said, "Someone's going to get hurt!!!" What I've FINALLY understood after lots of questioning with wishy-washy answers is that they were then playing tag in Cassie's room so that they wouldn't get in trouble. Tag + Small Space = BAD IDEA!!!! She was dodging him, dancing around, and fell onto her outstretched hand, bent it weird, and landed on it.  She was crying a bunch and even shaking a bit, but with a 4-year-old drama queen (don't know where she gets that...), I am never sure how bad something really is.

Anyway, we went to my dad's office and he was concerned.  If you don't know, my dad is a chiropractor.  On the way there, she said, "But how will I eat candy at Grandpa's work?  This is the hand that I use!!!" She has her priorities straight, I tell 'ya!

So, the slightest movement set her off, so he splinted it with a ruler and ace bandage, as he didn't have any teeny tiny splints. He thought that we should take her in to the hospital.  He was afraid of fracture or dislocation with how tender it was and how scared she was of any movement/touching.

The x-ray process at the hospital was AWFUL. I couldn't be in there with her since I'm pregnant and she was screaming for me the whole time. Mom was with her (Mark had taken Conrey to eat, because it was getting late and he was starving. We knew that he would be a pest at the hospital.  I think that it would have been even harder on Daddy to see his little girl go through all of this anyway.). They had to bend, turn, and rotate her arm to get the right views. I was rather irritated. Pretty much I was bawling my eyes out as I stood out in the hall listening to her scream for mommy.


Long story short, she landed just wrong to where it broke the bigger of the 2 bones in her arm, just past the wrist...if you look down at your arm, it's the one on the thumb side. It is a break straight across the bone.
She did really good the rest of the time just resting until it was time to splint. That was bad. More bending, turning, moving. As she's crying, she starts screaming...SCREAMING...that she needs to potty and she needs to potty NOW. Oh, my. They get it set and we run to the bathroom. We come back and they say that they are concerned that she was so tender to elbow movement so they want to take that temp cast off and put a different one on that goes past her elbow. Oh. my. lanta. Not only does all of the movement, pushing, etc. KILL her, but they force her elbow to bend in, which she screamed bloody murder at. Now, she is permanently bent at a 90 degree angle and it is wrapped from just above the elbow to her hand.

Wanna know the BEST part? They gave her loritab...at the END right before we left! I was sooooo mad that they wouldn't give it to her earlier. They gave her 2 popcicles throughout, but no drugs and she was screaming and crying. Talk about killing a mommy!  I would have thought that they would drug her up before they did all of that so that it wasn't so agonizing to her.  I'm not sure the reasoning for it, but it was bad.

Oh, yeah...as we are cuddling and icing still at home (the fact that she was letting me ice it was proof to me that it was badly hurt), the Super Why episode that we watched was about not running, going slowly, and the secret message at the end was BE CAREFUL! I thought that that was ironic.
 
So, that has been our day.  She will go Friday for a real cast, which she'll wear for 4 weeks or so.  Everyone was saying, "Are you going to get a pink cast or purple.....?"  Nope.  Not my daughter.  She wants red or black.  Lovely.  :)  She has been so brave and strong all day long and I am so, so proud of her!  It has been tough and overwhelming for a little 4-year-old, but I am just thankful that it was a teeny break and that it should heal up with no other problems.  Thank you, Lord, for that blessing in the midst of this poopy experience.  Am I allowed to say poopy to God?  Well, I guess I did....
 
On a different note, my iron is a bit low.  They want it above 12 and it was 10.7.  Now, when you compare that to the 4 that it was at when I had iron and blood transfusions with Conrey, it's not so bad, but we need to get it up.  I started supplements today and we're going to watch it closely.
 
Seeing as how it is 12:40 a.m., I am beyond exhausted, and I know that I'll have 2 hoodlums up bright and early in the morning, I am going to end this and say goodnight.  I am praying that Cassie sleeps peacefully all night long and that her pain stays at bay while she sleeps.  I'll let ya know how she's doing in a day or 2...