Wednesday, March 20, 2013

No More Monkey Bars!

 Sydney has gone and got hurt....again.  2 Days ago I received a phone call from the Elementary school.  I picked up and listened as her teacher told me that Sydney had fallen off of the monkey bars at school and that she thought her arm was broken.  Now, I have seen two broken arms as a mother, two broken elbows to be exact. (Dylan fell while running on a tennis court, and Syd fell off of Grmandmas bed). Both times, they were a tad painful, but in the grand scheme of things, didn't worry me too much.  They got their casts on and the pain was gone and they were back running around within hours.  So, when I had received this phone call I figured, Oh crap, poor kid...shes is going to be in a cast for 6 wees!  I also thought, well lets just wait to hear what the nurse says...it is probably not that bad. While driving,  I calmly called Cameron to let him know, and then my brother in law to ask if I needed to go to the ER or the orthopedist if it was truly broken.  I clearly didn't think it was going to be a huge deal. Well, what I saw when I walked into that nurses room at the school is something I will not ever forget.  Her arm was hanging and bent a bit backwards on the bed at the elbow.  It clearly was broken.  I immediately cried out a couple of profanities, and proceeded to comfort Sydney (throwing down her backpack that I hand't seen was where her arm was rested).  Shit! Syd screamed and I immediately lost it.  This was not just a minor break.  Cameron called back in this exact moment and by the sound of my voice, he knew it was serious.  He quickly left work and met me at the ER, and Jason our family ER Dr. came as well.  Here was the xray:
When Jason saw it he said, "This is a bad break".  If you know Jason, there aren't many "bad" things, so that alarmed me.  It was a level 3, the worst kind. He and his partner both said they wouldn't feel comfortable working with her arm and that she needed to go to Childrens Hospital in Atlanta. So off we went to another ER.  

 They had to cut off her dress :(  (It was one of my favorites).  Here she is getting a split to help transport her to Atlanta a bit more manageable   Poor girl.  Every time we hit a bump in the road she would cry, "OW! stop shaking me!"
When we were able to get into an exam room, two clowns came in singing and blowing balloons.  It almost got a smile out of Sydney, but not quite.  They were great though and I was so grateful to them for keeping her so occupied.  Makes me want to do that someday!  

I don't have pics from when we were in her hospital room.  Sydney was pitiful.  It truly was awful and very reminiscent of her stay 4 years ago.  Sydney does not respond well to morphine.  It makes her super cranky,  tired and it doesn't work too well with managing her pain.  She was in a lot of pain and just would moan and moan.  She also had not eaten anything since 7 am that day, and it wasn't until 9:00pm that they were able to get her in for surgery.  When she came back from the surgery she was fast asleep, so Cameron snuck out and went home.  It wasn't 10 minutes later that Sydney woke up...and stayed up. All night.  I thought after the surgery it would be better, but to no avail, it was way worse.  She was in so much pain! It was so hard to see and so tough because there was nothing I could do.   Syd and I probably got about 3 hours of sleep total. She would wake up about every 15 minutes moaning, itching (from the meds), crying that her eyes were acting "crazy" and that she wanted to go home, and hyperventilating because of the pain.  It was horrible.  It was easily in my top 3 all time worst nights of my life. It is so hard to see your kid suffer and not be able to do anything about it. Nothing prepares you for that.

Anyway, the next afternoon she as able to get her "pipple cast" on and we were able to come home.  She is doing much better but still very pathetic and needy.  These pain meds work better, but still she is in pain.  

I never thought a broken arm could be so awful, but after looking at this xray, it makes sense and it makes me so incredibly grateful for modern medicine.  Here was her very first smile after getting her cast.  It was ready to go home!

Interesting note: It was brought to my attention that these breaks are very rare for kids this age, and that syds epilepsy meds might have caused a loss in her bone density.  Kids on these meds (the specific ones that she was on) have 2x more fractures like this, and often have osteoporosis.  I don't know if this was the case, but it sure is worth looking into. Now I am off to research how to build up that bone density...if possible.  Poor girl, she has been put through the ringer.

1 comment:

Kristine Pratt said...

Poor girl, like you said, she has really been through the ringer and she's still so young! Glad you got the right doctors to fix the bone. Hope she continues to recover well. So sorry this happened to you guys!