The next day, I met my friend Christine at Kerr park and our kids were playing, as usual. We've been to Kerr park numerous times and it is one our favorites. I happened to look over to see Eli sliding halfway down a curvy slide only to jump off and hold onto the side of the slide, yelling something and then dropping to the ground. I didn't flinch at all because that is typical Eli. He ran off, played with his buddy, met a new kid and they were all playing together as I talked to my friend. It was a great morning.
Then I heard a scream from Eli. When I turned around, he was on the ground next to the plastic hippo climber they have there that is no more than 3 feet from the ground. FYI, Eli is my dramatic, emotional one that screams the same when he is in serious danger or when he stubs his toe. So I walked over to him thinking it would be an easy consoling and when he got up, I breathed out heavily the words 'oh my goodness', eyes bulging, stomach turned. His arm was good from his shoulder to the middle of his forearm, but the middle is where it jutted up (yes, I said up!) by a 45 degree angle. I knew in the split second that I looked at it that it was broken. Typically I would have flipped the freak out! But I was calm, for Eli because if I was a frantic madwoman like I felt inside, he would react the same. I used my hand to try the best I could to splint his arm, scooped him up, asked my dear friend to get Evie for me and we walked calmly to the car. Eli wasn't screaming, but he was crying and he knew something was very wrong.
The drive to the hospital was excruciating for Eli, but he didn't scream. He complained and cried, which broke my heart, but I was able to talk to him and pray with him and ask him what color cast he would want. I couldn't get my bearings enough to figure out the quickest route to the hospital so I just drove in that general direction. When we got there, I actually found a close spot near the ER...unimaginable at CCH, so that was God taking care of us for sure. So walking in, I was holding Eli's arm in one hand, holding him in the other and Evie was holding my pinky. I calmly breathed out the words, "I think my son broke his arm...." and the nurse who saw me coming before I even said a word told me, "Yes, you are correct."
Eli was a mess, scared and in pain. It was tough for a mom to see him like that. When he got the pain meds through an IV line, it was smooth sailing for a few hours! When they did the first X-ray, it showed the below....
....this is the side view, thumb up on his right arm. Can you imagine the pain of that for a little dude?? Can you imagine seeing your arm like that? If you look very carefully, you can see the skin and how it must have looked to us. Yikes.
So the lovely, awesome ortho surgeon, Dr. Towsen came in and she said that they would have to do a closed reduction. Chad and I of course were like, huh? She said she had to put him under anesthesia in the operating room and reset the arm and then cast it. When we explained to Eli, he flipped out saying he didn't want to go to sleep, he wanted to stay with us. I was scared too...all the forms we had to sign if something went wrong.....he's just a little dude!! :( But we prayed with Eli numerous times and explained that even though Mommy and Daddy wouldn't be there with him, Jesus would be right next to him. The nurses before the operation were great, even the one that said Eli was beautiful and kept referring to him as a she. I had to let her know that she was actually a he....she felt terrible, but I told her he gets that a lot because of the hair. :) The nurse downstairs had given him a little bear that was donated to the hospital for kids are scared and need a lovey. He was holding onto that thing tight!
We got to see him go partially under the anesthesia and the last thing I saw was him waving his hand in front of his face with a look of amazement...so the drugs were kicking in big time. :)
20 minutes later, he was in recovery, still with his new bear lovey. They woke him up and after being groggy for about 10 minutes, he went into "Denise" mode, asking all kinds of his usual questions about what everything is and does. Then we went up to pediatrics and stayed there for a bit.
One of his nurses up in Peds (I can call it that because I've been there....haha) was the mom of one his Hopewell Christian Preschool friends from last year so that was a nice surprise. Eli likes to tell people how he broke his arm falling off of a hippopotamus. You don't hear that one every day. And you know what you don't get TO DO every day?
That was the highlight of the trip for sure! And all day we had been promising him all this crazy stuff he rarely gets, one of which was McDonalds sweet tea. He wasn't allowed to eat so he hadn't eaten or drank in 9 hours! So we got him McDonalds for dinner and a big old sweet tea. He LOVED it!
When we got the kids to bed, we were exhausted. As I was going through the hospital stuff, I noticed the little bear lovey that Eli brought home.
I happened to see the tag on it said Hopewell, where Eli goes to preschool.
So I read the other tag and it said this:
AMAZING! Brought me to tears. What a great prayer, a great way to show children they are loved by Jesus in their time of need and oh how we did see that during that whole day!! And I cannot say enough incredible things about Hopewell Christian Preschool. Eli has had the most amazing experience there educationally and spiritually. God is good!
So first day after the arm breaking of 2011 wasn't too fun.
We were given by my parents neighbors (who ROCK!) this little arm slip on thing for the bath that has worked wonders!
By Sunday afternoon and Monday, he was back to his normal self. We even went to Longwood Gardens! Now the tough part is telling him he can't do things he thinks he can do because he forgets he has a cast. But we went to the orthopedic surgeon tonight that did his reset and cast for a one week visit and she said he was doing great! They did an x-ray again, too:
She even brought in a colleague to show her what a wonderful kid Eli was. Proud mama alert. :) She also said that Eli can go down to just a forearm cast in two weeks! Then two more weeks after that, he'll get his cast off!
All in all, it could have been worse, but Eli is soldiering through! I know I was updating Facebook throughout this whole ordeal and I want to thank everyone who thought about him, prayed for him or even just felt the least bit bad for him. Facebook is amazing in the fact that you can get an insane amount of people mobilized and praying with the push of a button when you need it. Thanks friends, I am very grateful for each you! And thanks for caring enough about us to read this novella.... :)
1 comment:
Aww poor Eli! I can't even imagine going through that as a mom! You are amazing! I don't know that I could have stayed so calm.. I hope he is doing much better now! :)
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