So I broke the cardinal rule the other day and now I'm paying for it. I mentioned to someone that Adam and I had been really lucky so far and haven't had to deal with any stitches or broken bones, yet. Of course, three day's later Lucie fell and broke her elbow.
She was throwing a temper tantrum about getting in the car so Adam picked her up and had his one arm around her waist. Of course, again, she would arch her back and fall to the floor. I guess she tried to catch herself and broke her arm instead. We went to American Fork Hospital ER first and they did an x-ray but as soon as the orthopedic surgeon saw the x-rays he said he wouldn't touch it and then they sent us to Primary Children's. Me, being an emotional parent as well as cheap, couldn't handle the thought of an ambulance so we decided to drive her there ourselves. The nurses at AF wrapped her arm as well as they could and then sent us on our way, with several pillows to balance her arm. By the way, they tried three times to give her an IV but couldn't find a vein so Lucie still had to pain medication whatsoever. That was the longest, most stressful drive I've ever been through. You don't notice how bumpy the roads are unless your need them to be perfectly still. So we got to Primary Children's and they rolled out at stretcher to get her, luckily AF had called and arranged everything before we got there, and then we were bombarded by doctors and nurses. Adam and I had no idea what we were doing there until the surgeon talked to us about what exactly was going on. Apparently, the spot where Lucie broke her elbow is very near a growth plate and they needed to put pins in the bones to keep it in the right spot. Also, she was losing her pulse in her hand so they needed to do it quickly to maintain her circulation in the hand and prevent another operation. They rushed her into surgery and she was out in about an hour. It as very quick, hardly enough time for me to stress and freak out properly. They wrapped her arm up in ace bandages and put it in a sling for now, and in a week we go back to the doctor and she will get a hard cast then. Her arm was VERY swollen and they weren't able to cast it because of that. So now I have to watch Lucie, Jackson and Daphne VERY closely to make sure that nothing happens to Lucie's arm. Daphne is really cute about it. She knows that Lucie is hurt so she keeps trying to give her hugs, which WOULD hurt, so she adds a degree of difficulty to the situation.
I have to say though, I'm incredibly proud of myself. Normaly I am a wreck and can't hold my emotions together during a crisis and Adam has to do that for both of us. This time, Adam felt so guilty for dropping her, he had a very hard time not showing his emotions. So that left me to be the tough one. At first I thought this had to be a sick joke from GOD but, I did better than I ever have before. I was able to, inspite of them trying 5 times to get an IV and waiting 5 hours to give her ANY pain medication, hold myself together. I'm not going to lie and say I didn't cry at all, but I didn't let Lucie see me cry and that's more than I can ask for.
The timing REALLY sucks, but at least it didn't happen any closer to Christmas than it did and she will have a hard cast and be feeling much better by the time school starts again too.
Merry Christmas!
