The unexpected likes to come at night...

Yesterday we were having a pretty relaxed day. S got invited to play video games with Grandpa and the rest of us ran some errands. Everyone was tired when we got home so all three kids and the husband took a nap. Iz, I expect, but the other two kids rarely take naps so they were worn out :p Late afternoon naps usually mean no one is tired at bedtime. We had sandwiches when they woke up and put on a cartoon movie. Iz was tired so I took her back in the bedroom to nurse her and get her to sleep. She was just about asleep and I knew in a few minutes I could slip away and get the boys ready for bed since their movie was almost over. Before that happened, though, I heard a thump from the living room and the most awful cry :(

S fell off the chair and broke his arm :/ When I heard him cry, I jumped off the bed (waking Iz in the process) but he was faster than I and came into the room--his lower arm looked like a U. EEK. The husband had the van at work so I called my parents, who live around the corner, and my mom came to watch the Littles while my Dad drove us to the ER. The husband left work and came home to pick up Iz and my Mom took B home with her.

We get to the ER (nice thing about a broken arm at eleven pm is no traffic) and they immediately assign him a room. He asks if he can ride in a wheelchair and the orderly goes and gets him one, wheels him back and settles him in. Aside from the initial crying, S has been very stoic about everything. He panicked a little at first, kept asking me if he was going to die, but while I was making calls and dressing and getting ready to go, I kept telling him it would be fine, the hospital would fix everything up, they would have medicine for pain and would straighten his arm and we talked about all the people we know who broke a bone. At one point he was worried they would need to remove all his skin to get to the bone and he didn't want to lose the temporary tattoo he had gotten at summer camp (that was mostly washed off and illegible at this point).

He kept very politely asking if he could please have pain medicine now but he went through a round of vitals, exams, and X-rays before it came down from pharmacy. They thought they may have to send him to surgery because he broke two bones, they were not clean breaks, and his arm was U shaped. But they wanted to try to set first so they hooked him up to a crash cart, got an IV started and put him under conscious sedation.

Setting those two bones was no easy feat and I think they were all surprised when they got them to snap back together and splinted. There was much twisting and pulling and pushing. Thank God for the conscious sedation--he watched them doing it but felt nothing (and remembers very little). One of the student medics walked out into the hall and promptly passed out. They had to admit him and get a full workup. His fellow students got to practice putting an IV in him. Poor kid will probably never live this one down.....

When S started to come out of the sedation, he told one of his nurses, "I am one tough cookie. Yep, I am a tough cookie. You cant break me in half. I'm a tough cookie. But a bear would eat me because I'm a cookie. He doesnt care if I'm tough he will just yum yum yum me and eat me. I'm a tough cookie."

They had to observe him for a while to make sure he came out of sedation fine and he was good to go in about half the time they expected. We left the ER about 2:30am. He slept for about an hour once we got home and then was asking for help (can you warm my blanket? Can I have an ice pack? Can you take the ice pack off? Can you help me with the bathroom? Can I have more pain meds now? etc etc etc) every ten to fifteen minutes. I was so glad when the husband got home from work around 7:30 (yes, he had to go back in. The other manager was kinda mad the first one told him he had to come back--she thought he should have stayed home with us. I agree with her ;) ) because he took over and I got to finally sleep for a couple of hours.

My boy never stops moving yet he has spent all of today curled up in his little nest of blankets and pillows in the recliner, watching cartoons. He barely ate or drank but I did get him to eat a few bites here and there and he drank a cup of sprite and a cup and a half of water. We are tempting him with his favorites to get him to eat/drink at least enough to keep him going :p He is on tylenol with codeine for pain and it wears off much sooner than he is allowed to take another dose but he seems to take after me and doesnt like taking pain meds so he often just holds real still and waits for a while after they are "due" to take more. He also prefers to put his ice pack on first and put off the next dose of meds just a little bit longer :p I think I might try some ibuprofen and see if that helps without the weird side effects he wants to avoid. I know Iz was able to stretch out her tylenol with codeine doses by alternating with ibuprofen so maybe he can, too.

He is in the temporary splint and bandages and sling right now--they said the orthopedist will put on a cast when the swelling has had time to go down a bit. Oh, and S is very proud that they had to get him an adult sling--his arm is too long for a children's sling :p

And one thing that amused me was the fact that the doctor and nurse practitioner on S's case thought I must be a doctor or nurse because I was explaining all the equipment and procedures to S before they even thought to do it. The NP in particular was floored that I knew so much and was not in the medical field. I told her "I read a lot" LOL