You know, we should just never go away. Then we wouldn't break things. If you recall, last summer just before we went on vacation, Micah broke a toe - my toe. This time it was Aslynn.
It was the warmest day of the year to date. The kids were outside in their swimming stuff enjoying the sunshine and the lack of snow that fateful Monday afternoon. I had some great plans to head to a board meeting that night and Faith had less exciting plans to watch Stars on Ice with her parents who were in town. Yeah, never mind. She got the better deal. I've been to Stars on Ice before and had an amazing time with Faith. We needed a babysitter. So I called up one of our youth, and he accepted. Our kids love him.
When I returned home, the kids were all in bed. Faith came home shortly after I did, and we dropped him off at home. As soon as I walked into the house, Aslynn came out of her bedroom looking a little pale. She was holding her arm and still wearing her bathing suit. The sitter mentioned that she had fallen while riding her bike, but that she seemed fine after he calmed her down. She had road rash from her toes to her knees to her thigh and it stopped at her elbow. You could tell it had been cleaned, but it was still pretty nasty. With one look at her arm Faith and I both made a conscious decision - it could wait until morning. Why? Because Aslynn was able to sleep with her arm in this state. Because even though it didn't look great, I knew the wait we were looking forward to and that she needed her sleep more than immediate treatment. I got her some medication and sent her back to bed. And wrapped her arm in a tensor bandage, just to be safe. She mentioned that the pain was radiating from her wrist...
The next morning she woke up and we informed her that she was not going to school but the hospital, or the doctor's office. We discovered that when you make an appointment with the doctor and miss it, you get a friendly letter in the mail saying, "Hey! Next time you miss an appointment, you pay!" Considering that the office is always booked up, I know that they will always have someone to take our place, but it's nice knowing that they care so much about the government's money - which is really mine somewhere along the line, but let's not get lost in all of that. I informed them that I received the letter and the circumstances surrounding it. They understood. Anyway, Faith took Aslynn to the hospital and waited there for only a brief while before being seen by a doctor, which in our experience is unusual. Aslynn kept telling Faith that she hoped it was broken. Little attention seeker. She is our child who has visited the hospital the most with the most severe injuries. I guess she takes after me.
Sure enough, the x-ray confirmed that Aslynn had indeed broken her arm (ulna) near the elbow, not the wrist. It was a clean break, but one that had to be set. So they got her into a bed, called in an anesthesiologist to knock her out with the lowest dose possible, and got the pediatric orthopedic surgeon from the nearest children's hospital on the line to confirm his findings and treatment - he sent over the x-rays and everything via email, including the x-rays after he moved the bone into place. While she was still immobilized, the team took their time to give her a pink cast as per her request.
Aslynn was apparently hilarious coming out of her anesthesia.
"Where am I?"
"In the hospital honey."
"I am?"
"Yeah, you broke your arm."
"I did?"
"You have a pink cast on."
"I do?" This conversation was repeated several times. There were a few other quality moments...
"Mommy, you have four eyes."
"There's two of you."
Aslynn, don't ever try drugs. Anyone around you will tease you mercilessly for the silly things you say and do and you will always remember because everyone will keep reminding you of how silly you were. That, and drugs are bad for you. Your brain, your emotions, your body - you aren't yourself when you use. So don't. Ever. We just get to laugh now.
All of this to say they were in and out with proper treatment within 4 hours, and then got some food and came home with a pink cast in a sling.
You should hear how the babysitter found out. Ha! Faith brought Aslynn with her to his house to drop something off. His dad came out and jokingly said to her, "Did that happen when my son was babysitting you?" When he realized the truth, he just couldn't help himself but laugh. Now the whole youth group knows the story - not from me - and he felt SOOO bad. He just assumed that Aslynn was freaking out because she's a girl (he has five sisters).
So - we haven't really been able to go on bike rides as a family since... We'll get around to it in four to six weeks...
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