Cake Walk

Re-reading that last post I can hear the exhale in those words.  It felt like this hectic end of summer with all of the things I've yet to post about like our epic vacation, our church family camp, Nathan's 10th birthday party, an ER visit for Nathan with stomach pain that turned out not to have anything to do with the tiny hernia I would like to ignore, but am afraid to, back to school night, haircuts for the kids, a Labor Day weekend trip to Ohio for Nathan with friends with us trying not to worry too much about the stomach pain he would gladly fight through to go on said trip, and home improvement projects in two of the bathrooms after a small incident with a dripping sink.

We were halfway there.  They were in school.  There was just one more half day and that full day was just right there waiting for me to be able to go to the gym, get groceries, do some cleaning...at least have a little glimpse of that routine I was missing.

The girls and I were late to Nathan's baseball game that evening.  We drove up to the park with Sarah very excited about that particular park because she had just mastered the monkey bars there.  She also said she had to go to the bathroom.  Slightly annoying when we had just left our nice clean home and the only option at this park was a not so nice porta-potty.  She said she could wait and ran off with her friend, Brandon.  Hannah was not feeling great.  Tired I guess.  She came with me and sat down to watch the game.  We were sitting there for about 10 minutes, maybe.  A little girl I don't know came running up to the bleachers and told a man I don't know that "Josh's friend broke her arm".  It took me a minute, but somehow my brain put together, "Josh's brother, Brandon...playing with Sarah...park...girl...broken arm".  I said, "Sarah broke her arm?", and then I stood up and ran across the field as best as I could run in flip flops, hoping this girl I don't know was more on the dramatic side and that there was no broken arm, but just something I could kiss and make better.

Sarah was sitting down on the grass as if she had been walking toward us.  She was with Brandon and she was wailing.  A real wail, but to be fair, she can make a similar noise when she doesn't get her way in the basement.  The little girl who came to get us came with me and there were other people there, but it is all a blur.

Sarah was in pain.  Her arm looked swollen and not right, but she was mostly upset that she had to go to the bathroom and then that she did.  In her pants.  I was doing my best to calm her and hold her, but I know it hurt to move her.  One of the suckiest parenting moments ever.  Nurse or not, I had no clue what to do.

Of course, you get an x-ray.  Easier said than done.  The time between that moment in the park and the x-ray felt like forever.

She was so patient.  And so stoic.  I think maybe too stoic.  It should not have taken as long as it did to get her any pain medication, but they must have been busier that night than they were the week before because we got a lot more attention for stomach pain than we did for a broken arm.  Or "possible broken arm" as it was known until...

 

X-ray confirmed.  Ortho called.  Surgery needed.  Mom not taking news well.

 

At some point we knew she was there for the night.  Dad left to get us some stuff and deliver to one kid already with friends and another kid plus her stuff to another friend.  It was late.  It was hard to be seven, already tired and not wanting her dad to drop her off somewhere else besides home.  We are so thankful for friends.

 

 

Sarah made it through the night with frequent morphine, a lot of IV fluids, the trauma of moving to a bedside toilet every time those fluids kicked in and the obvious pain that it caused to move.  We both stayed and we both got no sleep.  The patient got very little. 

 

We were all awakened early by surgical rounds.  A HUGE group in a teaching hospital and had Sarah been feeling like herself she might have found it entertaining that one of the hand signs the attending surgeon asked her to do was "Texas Longhorns".  I'm fairly certain not all 5 year olds in Michigan know that one.  Obviously 6 AM after a restless, painful night was not the time to joke about how she is likely the one patient here he's ever had that is familiar.  Surgery was scheduled for 9:30.  That felt like another forever.

 







She came out on the other side.  It was just another broken arm for most of the staff.  "The most common break we see".  Somehow that is less comforting than they seem to think it is.  I felt the teaching was lacking.  It might be one of hundreds for them, but it is our first and while the surgeon insisted the pain would be gone as soon as the pins were in and she could easily go straight back to school the next day, the reality for us was slightly different.

She slept.  She needed pain meds.  She finally got to eat after a longer than fun delay of getting an order so that she could eat.  The surgeon who was so insistent she could go to school the next day did come and write orders to get her discharged, but there's all that hospital red tape that I don't even like experiencing as a nurse, much less a mom eager to get outta there.

Less than 24 hours later, we did.  Anxious to pick up the other two (who had completed that last half day hours before) and who were worried and anxious about their sister.

Clearly that surgeon who thought she'd be back at school just a mere 15 hours later was misguided.  She was only up once during the night asking for medicine.  She got up and asked to get dressed the next morning right away.  She was still very timid with her arm then, but the thing that seemed to bother her the most was the loss of independence.  In her mind, she wasn't going back to school until she regained that independence.  She was not a fan of the looks and comments of sympathy either.  Still isn't, but at least now when someone asks her how her arm is, she'll answer, "Fine", rather than just stare them down as if she could make them disappear.

The weekend went okay.  Anything new was challenging.  She moved up to a new classroom at church, but those anxieties were quickly removed when she saw how much fun that place was...not to mention 3 out of the 4 other family members were in there with her.  Monday was hard, but she did it.  I did manage to leave her there.  I spied on her after lunch.

The playground was my biggest worry for her.  She didn't have time to meet very many people before this happened and I just didn't know how it was going to go.  I found her surrounded by kids (later found out they were mostly Hannah's friends) drawing happily with sidewalk chalk.

I came in and sat with her in the office during gym.  She made "Mr. Mustache" who she later said was actually Yeh yeh.  She was chatty and happy and much more like Sarah.

Tuesday I was there to help with lunch.  She cried and asked to go home when she saw me.  I saw for myself that she was surrounded by Hannah and friends on the playground.  I worried about the lack of other kinder kids and had my heart broken a little bit when I saw how scared and lonely she looked in the cafeteria.  I went home sad.  Defeated a little.

Wednesday was a great day.  With a little bribery, I convinced her dance class was still very possible and would be fun even with a broken arm.  She did great.  All smiles.  And a bonus of Grace joining her dance class this year.  I was too busy getting settled into the routine to actually get any pictures, but in my opinion, dance class was where it all turned around for her.

Fast forward to the weekend.  She was an awesome spectator for her sister's soccer game and the second game of her brother's double header.  Saturday was the first day she managed to dress herself and she was so proud.  This morning she made her bed and she's even back to playing the piano.


She asked to walk in to school by herself this morning.  I've only been helping her put her lunch on the shelf because it was too high for her to lift with one arm.  Today she was ready to figure things out for herself. 

She knows the cast will be on for at least four weeks, but at first I don't think she had any idea what that really means.  It seems to have started to sink in that 4 weeks is long in kindergarten days and she's decided to figure out how to be herself as much as she can.  Yesterday our pastor said in his message that even though it is inconvenient to break a bone, we know that after that bone has healed it is stronger than it was before.  I don't know how true that is, but it was something I needed to hear to keep from bubble wrapping her after this cast comes off.  We've already had to remind her multiple times not to climb on chairs and to please not carry anything down the stairs.

I need to remember to let her be the monkey she's become and that I can't protect her from everything unpleasant no matter how hard I try.

It is clear after scrolling through the pictures on my phone...the girl loves this stuff.  She'll be back (although someone needs to tell that to the butterflies in my stomach).





Cake walk is referencing both Sarah's general attitude about this whole broken arm thing and my constant battle with myself to have everything running smoothly, in my comfort zone, cake walking through life.  I had envisioned the beginning of this school year very differently, but I'm thankful for the unexpected and reminders of blessings I often take for granted.  Those other two kids in the house?  They are hanging in there.  Hannah jumped right into tumbling, soccer, and two days a week dance classes on top of second grade.  So far so good.  Nathan had a rough weekend with a busy overlap of lots of baseball and a late basketball tryout on Sunday.  He ran out of gas before the tryout even started.  Sometimes we are too busy for our own good and sometimes it causes our kids to learn a hard lesson.  He's hit that interesting tween stage where we don't always get to know what's going on in that mind of his, but all we can do is our best.  Although it may not seem like it from this very lopsided post, the other two have not been ignored in this whole ordeal.  We are just really that busy.  And this is with Dad in town for the most part.  That's about to change so we'll get a little glimpse into the new normal very soon.  And no, it won't be a cake walk, but that was never promised in the first place.  More updates to come...hopefully nothing quite as eventful as this one so that we can actually reach way back into July and August and get some of those vacation pictures on here.  Yes, that is an actual exhale you hear.