The broken arm story

Alright, here is the broken arm story. I really wish I wasn't blogging about this because I would rather pretend this day NEVER happened. But, it did. And it was a pretty big deal. So, here we go. First off, I should really re title this post to 'Worst Mother of the year'...we'll get to that shortly.
The weekend after Papaw's wedding, the kiddos had a family birthday to attend in The Woodlands. Derek had already made plans to go out of town for a boys weekend, so the kiddos & I made plans to just spend the weekend in The Woodlands since that is also where Aunt Hettie (Derek's sister) lives. All week, leading up to the weekend, I had an uneasy feeling about our little trip. I irrationally came to the conclusion that since we were going to be driving a lot that weekend...that we were going to get in a car wreck. I almost decided to just stay home. Instead, I got up early Saturday morning & switched the kids car seats from my SUV to Derek's truck because I felt the truck was a tad safer. I spent a good 30 minutes installing those two car seats to perfection, and off we went. We made it to The Woodlands fine, picked up Aunt Hettie & headed off to the birthday party.

The party was at a park there in The Woodlands and Dawson was having a great time playing with cousin Luke.
This picture was literally 10-15 seconds before the incident.
I snapped a few pics of them & then was looking down at my camera when I heard Dawson say "Watch me Mom!" He had stood up & was just starting to jump when I looked at him, and he was jumping out for the monkey bars. The monkey bars were really high up, even when standing on the platform. He jumped for the first one, but since he was glancing over his right shoulder to make sure I was looking at him, he only caught the first bar with his left hand. That made the right side of his body and right arm hang down lower. Then, he held on with only his left hand just long enough for the momentum of the jump to swing his feet out from under him...right as he fell. I knew immediately, before he hit the ground, that this was why I had had an uneasy feeling & that we were headed for the ER. Definitely better than a car wreck though. I quickly scooped him up & ran towards the car screaming at Hettie to grab Andi. So, here I am, in an unfamiliar town, with both kiddos, a badly broken arm & NO Derek. Why do the husbands always seem to miss this stuff? My cousins Steve & Chris hopped in Chris' car & we followed them (with Hettie driving our truck) to the best ER that they knew of in the area. We were driving through The Woodlands like crazy people.

I racked my brain as to how I could only post this image for those who wanted to see it, but I finally decided to just put it here for posterity & apologize to those who have a hard time handling stuff like this. Anyway, this was the quick pic I took with my cell phone while we were speeding to the ER. The photographer in me thought 'Maybe we will want to see this someday.' And, Dawson does think it is cool to look at now. But, right after I took this picture, I realized I was in trouble. I get carsick really easy & I had been riding in the backseat of the truck, turned completely backwards while holding a bag of ice on 'twisty arm.' Also, it was like 95 degrees & I was just a tad stressed out. Uh oh, I was completely nauseous & lightheaded. I leaned back in my seat & was trying to concentrate on taking deep breaths. That is the last thing I remember until my cousin Steve was waking me up in the ER parking lot. Oh great, I had passed out. I tried to tell Steve to just let me sit there for a few minutes until everything stopped spinning, and to go ahead & take Dawson inside. But, I could hear Hettie yelling at him to get me out of the car. You see, because of my high blood pressure issues, she was worried I was having a stroke or something & thought I needed to be admitted too. So, he starts helping me out of the car...and again, that is the last thing I remember. The next time I came to, I was crumpled on the floor in the ER lobby...covered in my own puke. This story just gets better & better doesn't it? My poor children are sitting calmly in the lobby just staring at me & looking completely terrified. The only good thing about that exact moment was that I felt completely normal again. I went to the bathroom to try and clean myself off, but it was no use. I reeked of puke. And I would continue to for the next 6-7 hours until we got back to Hettie's house so I could change. Due to ER protocol, I had to at least sit in a wheelchair for 15 minutes or something like that. So, I scooped Dawson up into my lap in the wheelchair & a few minutes later when they were ready for us, they just wheeled us both back. I have to say, my boy was a COMPLETE trouper. He never cried/ whimpered once. Luckily, he said it didn't hurt at all. Now, that may have been adrenaline, but I'll take it. And, since his arm wasn't hurting, all he had to worry about was whether his crazy Mom was okay & why she had to sit in a wheelchair. Like I said...worst mother of the year.

The first x-rays. The left image is from the top of his arm & the right image is from the side. You can see that he broke both bones & that one of the breaks was not a clean break, it was a splintered break. They weren't completely sure if they were going to be able to set the break without doing surgery. So, they prepped him for surgery just in case. While we were waiting for the OR to be ready for him (about 30 minutes) he really started to get worried & I could tell he was right on the verge of a major panic attack. So, I just started praying out loud to try to keep him calm. God sent us a spider. Yup, you read that correctly. The funny part is that I HATE spiders. But, right there in our little room, a tiny little jumping spider interrupted our prayer. That silly jumping spider, jumped all around us, and kept Dawson calm & even laughing those last stressful minutes. I never would have thought I would be thankful for a spider in my life.

They were able to set the break without surgery, but they still put little ones to sleep to set broken bones. So, we waited for him to come out of anesthesia, got his prescriptions filled, grabbed some fast food dinner, and went 'home' to Hettie's house...where I FINALLY got to shower & change out of my pukey clothes!

Here he is all comfy at Hettie's house, fully dosed with pain meds. I had forgotten that we learned from a previous surgery, that the pain meds do not knock him out...they make him wired. So, it was almost midnight before he FINALLY went to sleep!

The next day, I took him to Wal-Mart to get his prize. You see, I had promised him the day before that I would take him to get an 'I-broke-my-arm' prize. He of course picked out a super-hero toy. This was also when I told him that he would not be able to play the rest of his t-ball season. He was not a happy camper.

This is one of the FEW pics I have of him with his cast. He hated it...wouldn't let anyone sign it, didn't want to talk about & definitely didn't want anyone to see it or take pictures of it. He wore a long cast up to his shoulder for 3 weeks, then a short cast up to his elbow the next 3 weeks.

Here he is about to get his cast off. Imagine that, he was wearing a super-hero costume that day. Notice the duct tape on the cast. About a week before this, the part of the cast between his thumb & fingers had broke. I was not about to pay for another cast for one week...so I just taped it. Ha!

And...it's finally off! Woohoo! Because of the splintered break, he had a 'lump' on the top of his arm where the break was for a few more months, but it is completely normal now. I just try to avoid parks with monkey bars now. Okay, okay...I admit it, I'm a tad paranoid. I try to avoid all parks now. :-)