As any mom of boys knows, when you get a pretty day in January you might as well forget keeping your kids inside. Monday was one of those pretty days. Usually, that makes for a more peaceful day for me. Monday it ended with a broken wrist, an ambulance transfer, and 15 hours in the ER. Fun!
My boys tend to be a little on the crazy side when they play outside. They climb trees, climb onto the roof, jump their skateboards and bikes off ramps, stairs, and grinding rails, and other boy nonsense. I’m actually surprised we haven’t had more trips to the ER. What is surprising is that Joshua fell and broke his wrist simply stopping a basketball. Go figure.
We could tell by his response that a trip to the ER was in order. He is generally a pretty tough little guy, but he was very upset and could barely move his wrist. Laura was at my house, so we decided to leave the kids with John and head 20 minutes up the highway to the ER in a nearby town. I expected an easy fix and home by bedtime. I was wrong. It was about 4:30.
We were seen pretty quickly and the doctor was almost certain that the wrist was truly broken. There was a bit of a wait for radiology, but the x-rays confirmed the break. Right on the growth plate. They could do the surgery there or transfer us to Children’s Medical Center in Dallas. We opted to transfer. That’s when the real fun began.
Laura headed back to town to pick up Carolyn, Mom headed to my house to get the kids, John headed to Children’s, and Joshua and I loaded into the ambulance. Ambulance rides are rough and bumpy. Very rough and bumpy. Especially when you are almost 9 months pregnant. About halfway there, I started having contractions. Now, I have been having a good number of braxton-hicks contractions for the last few weeks, so I didn’t worry about it at first. My doctor told me not to worry unless they were coming steadily 10 minutes apart or less. After several, I started timing. 3 minutes. Uh-oh. Fortunately, when we got to the hospital and out of the nightmare ambulance, they stopped. To say I was relieved is just not a strong enough statement!
John got there about the same time that we did, and they got us checked in and into an ER “room” pretty quickly. Laura and Carolyn arrived soon after and the waiting began. It was about 9.
Our room was actually a double room, separated by a curtain. The poor kid in the other room made me very grateful we were there for just a broken wrist. He had crashed on his bike, straight on his face, and was in pretty bad shape. He had a steady stream of specialists in and out to see him. I’m not sure I want my kids on a bike ever again!
We finally saw the orthopedic doctor and he told us surgery would not be necessary. They would be able to maneuver the growth plate back into place under conscious sedation and it would be a pretty minor procedure. There was one kid ahead of us and we should be on our way home by 2 or 2:30 am. I could deal with that.
Time passed. We waited. Joshua was okay, but the pain was coming back. They gave him some morphine and he did not like it at all! (I don’t think we will have to worry about Joshua doing drugs – he hates the way he feels when he gets anything like that!) They moved us to the orthopedic room and we waited some more.
And some more.
And some more.
Finally, at 2:45, they were ready to get started. They gave him ketamine for the procedure, sent us out of the room, and fixed his wrist. Less than 20 minutes later, they were done. And then the real fun began.
As Joshua woke up from the sedation, he started to vomit. In order to go home, he had to wake up and drink some juice or eat a popsicle. Every time he tried, he vomited. Laura and Carolyn headed home, and John and I waited for the vomiting to stop. It was about 3:45.
The next few hours drug by. Joshua slept, tried to drink, vomited, and slept some more. They gave him some Zofran and IV fluids and tried to discharge him. He vomited again. He drank some Gatorade, they removed the IV and tried to discharge him again. He vomited again. He ate a popsicle and seemed ok. We waited. We waited a little longer. Finally, they sent us on our way. We stopped at the bathrooms on the way out and guess what? He vomited again. We went home anyway. It was about 8 am.
Finally, at about 9:30 am, we got home and headed to bed. We slept until 2:30 and all got up. Joshua continued to vomit when he tried to eat or drink. I called the doctor and he said not to worry. Joshua slept almost all day. Finally, by the time we really went to bed, he seemed better. We had him sleep in our room so I could watch him. I woke him around midnight to check on him and he was doing well. I could finally sleep.
Today, he is doing much better. He has had minimal pain and seems to be bouncing back pretty quickly.
Aren’t boys fun?!?!?!
