Broken Arm #2!

We were at the park yesterday afternoon when Willa jumped off a piece of playground equipment and broke her arm. She has jumped off of it a lot on other trips, but I think that Ryan maybe has helped catch her. I talking on the phone and a little distracted, so I feel guilty that I might have been able to catch her if I had been paying closer attention. As soon as she hit the ground, I saw her arm bend out of shape. She started crying pretty hard and cried even harder when I told her we were going to the hospital. She started walking but kind of fell down crying. I picked her up and I think June waddled behind us. We drove straight to the hospital and I called Ryan to meet us there since he was driving home from work. She did not want to go at all! Four is a hard age, they understand enough to be scared, but not enough to understand why we have to do things sometimes. 

The emergency room and whole thing was just annoying. It wasn't a horror story like you hear about, but it wasn't efficient and we were there almost four hours! Ryan got there soon after we did and he took June home while I stayed. I also had the brilliant idea to put Willa in the stroller, which helped so much to wheel her from place to place. The X-ray was super clear and it was obvious that both bones in her forearm were broken. Ulna and radius, I think. The good thing is that they are greenstick fractures, which means that bones bent and broke, but that they didn't break completely through. The doctor said they should heal quickly with no lingering problems. He also pretended to look away so I could take a photo of one of the X-rays. Nice guy!

Here is the annoying part. After the break had been diagnosed, they just needed to splint it and then we could go home. But, they wanted to give her some Tylenol with codein in it first because, duh, it hurt. We waited a whole HOUR to get the medicine. For some reason they didn't have it on the floor and had to call it in from the pharmacy, but it took forever! I could have left her, drove to CVS and gotten the prescription filled and been back in half the time. I wonder if the order got lost or forgotten. 

When we had very first gotten to the ER and talked to the nurse, she put us in a "quiet" room and said they would bring her some Motrin while we waited for a room and to get X-rays. Thirty minutes later, I went and asked where her medicine was. They just gave me blank stares and then I could hear them calling around and saying, "Oh, that's the one we've been waiting for to come to room 7 and to come to radiology." Really?! We were totally forgotten about and they were just wondering where we were. So after that, it wouldn't surprise me if something similar happened to get the medicine the second time. The nurses and staff were nice, but I just think that it wasn't run well, or something.

Willa was a basket case until I let her play a Strawberry Shortcake game on my phone until the battery got too low. I'm also used to children's hospitals and doctor's offices where there are lots of child friendly things available. There were no toys in our room and the television didn't have any kids shows. It was just a really uncomfortable place to be with a hurt, scared toddler who is up past her bedtime. Anyway, we got her fixed up with a fiberglass splint. We will go to the pediatric orthopedist on Monday. They like to do a splint for the first few days until the swelling goes down before they cast it. There wasn't a lot of swelling but her arm was bent funny. It was sad.

Can you see the slight bow in the forearm?

Under a warm blanket hanging out in the stroller. She kept her arm covered and didn't move it the entire time.

Finally, the splint and a Popsicle! When we first arrived and she was screaming in the waiting room, people just ignored us. On our way out when she was quiet with her cute little arm, there were lots of sighs from the peanut gallery at this cute, sad thing.

She slept pretty well last night, considering everything. I heard her a few times and went to check, but she was mainly crying out in her sleep after moving the wrong way with the cast on. Here is a picture this morning at Ryan's race. She really hates to wear the sling. They said it's mainly to help with the weight of the splint, so I don't press it with her.

As we were leaving the hospital, she asked if June would go to the hospital. We talked about that and she said that she would help talk to June about something happy to keep her from being scared. She started naming all these things and it was so cute. "Like, a splash pad is happy." I didn't mention to her that she didn't really seem to heed this advice earlier when I was trying to get her to calm down. Today was not perfect, but not too bad. She is getting used to it. Hopefully it won't be on too long! Since she broke her wrist at 18 months, has glasses, and now this - it makes me wonder what other physical ailments we are going to get with her :)!