Well, this week turned out quite differently than I envisioned it.

It was Cliff’s official second week home and since things had gone so well last week, this was the week we were going to try and get back into a “routine.” Funny how just the opposite can happen!

On Day 10 of Cliff being home, this past Tuesday, our son fell off the monkey bars at school and broke his arm in not one, but two places; his wrist and his elbow. When the nurse called me, though, you would have thought he’d simply tripped and skinned his knee.

“Mrs. Horn? This is the nurse from Caleb’s school. He’s in here with me right now, he had a little fall off the monkey bars and hurt his arm. You might want to come down and get him.” Her tone was so sweet you would have thought she was telling me he had thrown up in the cafeteria and needed a change of clothes. I told her I was on my way out the door for the car line anyway and I would be there in just a minute, and as I drove, I wondered just how bad it was. Was it a sprain? Was it a break?

When I got there, I could tell right away it wasn’t a sprain. The nurse’s office is right off the main office area and none of the office staff behind the counter were seated. All of them were standing, looking nervous and as I walked in, I could hear Caleb’s cries. He was sobbing and his left arm was in a splint, covered up with a bandage. His teacher told me she asked him if he tried to break his fall with his hands and he replied tearfully: “that was the problem, I couldn’t get them there fast enough!”

I held him close and he calmed down. As we were getting him out to the car, the nurse mouthed to me that she was pretty sure his arm was broken.

That twenty-minute drive to our closest hospital was the longest twenty minutes I’ve ever known. Cliff was out running some errands and I couldn’t get him on his cell phone so I just told him to meet us there, which he did about five minutes after we arrived. Once we got through the initial screening, they fast-tracked us, which I guess means you get moved to the head of the line. We didn’t have to wait long at all. They had to put an IV in his arm which was upsetting to say the least, but he let the staff do it when he finally understood that it was the only way to get medicine into him to help his arm stop hurting. When the doctor took a look and they realized they were dealing with two different breaks, one at the wrist and one at the elbow, they decided to send Caleb on to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital and I was actually relieved, because for those of you who don’t live around Nashville, Vandy Children’s is one of the best in the country and I was glad to know they would be sending him to a pediatric ortho specialist.

I surprised myself with how calm I was. Caleb was upset enough; he didn’t need me upset too. They told us he would most likely be spending the night at the hospital so it was decided that Cliff would ride in the ambulance with Caleb and I would head home to gather changes of clothing, DVD player and iPod, and the most important item, Caleb’s blanket he’s slept with since he was born. We’ve been lucky. He’s six years old and this is the first major hospital visit we’ve ever had. I kept telling myself broken bones happen and falls from

It was hard having to leave him to go home, and it was rush hour so I took the back roads to avoid the horrendous traffic on the interstate. Cliff kept me updated with texts to my cell phone and I texted back – do not sedate until I get there. The hospital had said they would put Caleb to sleep before they reset his arm.

It turned out though they decided surgery would be required and so we stayed overnight, and if you’ve ever stayed overnight in a hospital, you know sleep isn’t the main priority. It was hard enough for Caleb, with his left arm in a splint, and his right arm with an IV that they put a guard around so he couldn’t bend that arm either. Because the beds were full upstairs, we were in an overflow area in the ER, and every twenty to thirty minutes, we’d wake up to the screams of another child or the high-pitched cries of a baby. About two in the morning, I went out to beg for another room, but the staff sadly shook their heads and said there were none, but they were nice enough to put a blanket on the door which made the room much darker and muffled out some of the sound. They also gave Caleb some Benadryl which helped him sleep. Once he fell asleep, that’s when my tears came. I must have told Cliff three or four times that night how THANKFUL I was that he was there. Though there’s no great time for broken bones, the timing couldn’t have been better. If it had happened while he was still in Iraq, I think it just might have sent me over the edge!

One of the more funny things about being in a teaching hospital: we must have seen eleven different doctors in the 30 hours we were there and they all asked the same questions, so much so that Caleb learned how to summarize his answers.

“What happened buddy?”

“I fell off the monkey bars at school and landed on my arm.”

“Can you wiggle your fingers?”

“Yes.” (wiggling fingers)

“Can you do this?” (said doctor makes an ‘O’ shape with his index finger and thumb)

“Yes.” (Caleb copies said doctor and by the fifth or sixth said doctor, was already doing it before he or she asked).

“Can you feel this?” (said doctor lightly presses on each finger)

“Yes.”

“Does it feel the same as this?” (said doctor touches one finger on the left hand and then on the right hand)

“Sorta. But that arm’s not broken.”

Then the questions would start for us, and the one I loved the most was when each doctor would ask us how many doses of medicine (morphine) had Caleb been given since he’d been in the hospital. I secretly hoped they weren’t all relying on the memories of sleep-deprived parents and by the time we got around to the main anesthesiologist asking us right before Caleb went in for surgery, and we couldn’t remember if it was four or five, I jokingly said “there is a chart somewhere, right?” He assured me there was.

So, he had the surgery and two pins were put in his elbow and one in his wrist and we were able to come home on Wednesday, quickly thrown into learning how to deal with one less arm to work with. He won’t go back to school until he gets the hard cast next week, and so we are having fun keeping a six-year-old entertained, and he is figuring out how to deal with a hovering protective mother. “I’m OK, Mo-o-o-m,” is becoming his common refrain. Thankfully, though, Cliff isn’t at work, and my workload is much less than normal since I’d planned on not doing much with Cliff home. So we’re enjoying the family time, the cuddles and the talks, the movies and just being together.

You couldn’t really ask for anything better. Except maybe the no broken bone thing.

Related posts:

  1. The Fun Part of Being a Military Family