Must Write Before I Forget

Yesterday I was digging through my friends basement when one of her neighbor's, who happens to be Spencer's friend, poked his head around a corner and said, "Spencer's been trying to get a hold of you, he thinks one of the kids broke their arm".   "Umm, okay.  Thanks."  And I was off.  At this point I was feeling bad that I left my cell phone in the car and also wondering if Spencer wasn't over reacting, sometimes I think about how he must be mistaken, somehow this is a calming tactic I employ.  When I pulled up to our house the front door was open and he was walking out the door.  He had already called a local hospital and had two volunteers to take Adam and Kate, he'd been trying to reach me for about forty-five minutes.  When I walked in the house I could see Anna crying on the sofa with a huge bag of peas resting on her arm and I recognized how long she'd been in pain, kids just look so small when they're hurt - they curl up on themselves, and she looked tiny.

Spencer held her in the middle row while I drove to the hospital.  This part was stressful as I'd just dumped the kids on a different neighbor, a Dad, the Mom wasn't home yet.  I often feel bad dropping a baby on a Dad, prejudice I know.  Maybe some would suggest Adam is not a baby, but I'll fight you.  So we're driving to a hospital whose location I don't know, and Spencer is not known for his cartography skills.  When we get to the turn we think we should take we see that the street is closed to cars.  Ugh!  We drive around Harvard, the traffic in this neighborhood is always VERY slow.  I see a police officer and ask him how to get to the hospital, he says, "I don't really know Cambridge".  I mumble "thanks", and continue to drive on.  Really, a police officer not knowing there is a hospital two blocks down?  Shameful I say.  And closing a street in front of a hospital for bike riding - maybe not the best choice? (and I love bike riding)

In the hospital the nurses and doctors are remarkably nice and comforting and very interested in helping Anna, I don't think they get many kids in this ER.  A nurse pulls up Anna's shirt to look at her arm, this is my first glimpse, she looks at me and says, "don't let her drink or eat anything".  Her elbow is ugly.  I become more serious, I assume that they think she might need surgery.  They splint her arm, for comfort, and take some x-rays.  The x-rays come back with an impacted fracture to a plate in her elbow.  The kind dr. suggests that we should get an opinion from a pediatric orthopedic surgeon.  This means they want to take her to Children's Hospital in an ambulance, because she needs morphine in an IV; she shouldn't take anything orally in case they want to do surgery.  We think about this and decide that Spencer should go with her while I run home and get the other kids set up for the night.

This is when I leave the first hospital and rush home to find the side door ajar and the exterior light on and what should be an empty house.  I hesitate, thinking this isn't the safest thing I've done all day, and remember that I have only a few minutes to grab pajamas and blankets for the kids.  I go through the house really quickly yelling things like, "there better not be any killers in here".  Yelling always helps me feel calmer.  I drop a port-a-crib off at the same lovely neighbor, with only a moment to think, "This is weird.  They don't normally sleep here, will they be okay?"  My next thought was, they will be okay.  Run, get in the car, drive to another hospital whose location I don't know, find the right garage in a busy downtown, walk in and have to say, "my daughter was brought in on an ambulance and I don't know where she is".  Grateful I've never had to say that before, sad that I had to say it ever.  When I saw Anna, even though she was in pain and on a gurney, my stress just melted away.

It is so much better to be there.  There is always better than not.  I am really grateful I am usually there.  I thank God for Spencer's good job so that I don't have to spend my time away from my precious kids.  Anna is still in a lot of pain, even after the morphine.  Then I look around the room and see my Relief Society President.  How in the world did she get here before me?  Turns out she had been at the previous hospital visiting someone else when she got a call from yet another neighbor who was called by the baby-sitting neighbor watching my kids, because she was looking for a port-a-crib.  So it's 8 o'clock at night, Spencer and I haven't eaten or drank anything all day, we had been fasting that day, and the RS Pres had brought us food and a drink.  Wowzah.  We do not go through this life alone.

 

The Children's Hospital in Boston is a great place to be a sick kid.  Two women are employed as "fun ladies".    They walk around with things like; popsicles, dvd players and a huge selection of dvds, balloons, etc.  A nice woman tried to talk to an especially distraught Anna about casts and staying at the hospital.  Anna had a cocktail of morphine and an anti-anxiety drug, our dear daughter is not meant for drug use.  Nothing seemed to help, she mostly just sweated and moaned.  I would say the biggest helps were Dora and Cut The Rope.

Turns out the first set of x-rays weren't particularly clear and the second set revealed that the fractures weren't in a growth plate after all, so dun da da dun... no surgery!  We arrived home last night at about 1am, very relieved, very tired, and very grateful it was just her arm that was broken.  By the way, Anna feel through the guard rail on her sister's top bunk bed.  That stupid rail went out with the trash this morning and Anna is now in a trundle bed.  No more bunk beds for this family.