A broken bone

Today is Sunday and it has taken me since Friday to really be ready to put this in writing. Jordan broke her arm on Friday afternoon, at home, in our backyard, doing kid stuff. I was mowing the lawn and needed the kids to move the Powerwheel Jeep out of the way. Dawson ran over and jumped into the driver's seat. Jordan knew the battery was dead so she ran over to give him a push. She was running pretty fast and it looked like she rolled her ankle and she just collapsed in a heap and started crying. I watched it happen and she was running toward me to I got a pretty good view. She can be a little wimpy sometimes, so I continues on the row I was mowing and turned at the end to head back in their direction. I could see that she was crying still, but the mower was loud so I couldn't really judge how much she was freaking out. I motioned to her to move and I watched as she got off the ground and into the Jeep. I stopped the mower and tried to move the Jeep with both kids in it, but was too heavy. I had to have them get out. Again, I watched Jordan closely to see if she was walking funny because I still thought she rolled her ankle. She walked slowly and kept crying. She went all the way to the stairs and was limping a little. I became concerned when she tried to use her arms to help climb the stairs. She couldn't do it. I turned off the lawn tractor and went over to confort and assess her. I did a pretty thorough exam of her arm since that is what she said was bothering her. I am a PT so I had an idea that this was more than a sprain. Anyway, I checked out her legs too just to make sure she was okay and then I asked her to go sit still on my swing for a while to see if her arm felt any better. I let her sit there for about 10 minutes and she kept crying and wiggling. This was abnormal even for the drama queen so I went to see her again. Her right arm was beginning to look different than her left and she was still really uncomfortable. I told her we were going to have to go to the doctor.

Darin was working so I called him to tell him about the injury. He said he would meet us at the hospital. So now I take a minute to assess the situation and I realize that even though the hospital is only 11 miles away, it os going to take about an hour for me to get there. Here is why...I discovered that morning that the kids had filled their carseats with gravel from the driveway the day before, so when we got back from dropping Rebekah off at school, we removed the seats from the van, completely took them apart and washed everything. The fabric covers were drying on the line and the plastic bases were drying in the sun. Jordan was wearing only underwear because she had gotten soaked when washing her carseat. Dawson was wearing a t-shirt and nothing else because he is potty training. Vanessa has gotten up from a nap and had a meal (which was all over her) and she was outside crawling around in the grass...dirty! It took me a while to get everyone ready to leave the yard and then I had to get the carseats back together. All the while, Jordan is really hurting, but she has calmed down and stopped crying. She didn't tolerate the splint I tried to make out of the 1x4 and tape, but she wanted the frozen peas on her.

On the way to the hospital I realized that I probably wouldn't be back in time to get Rebekah off the bus, so I called my cousin to ask if she could be there for Rebekah. She offered to pick up the other two also, so Darin and I would be able to pay attention to Jordan.

Jordan was really good at the hospital. She wasn't afraid of anything or anyone there. She was told by her parents that she could have a pink band-aid, but they said they would just splint it today...with white plaster. She was not impressed, and then they made her even more angry when they dressed her in a johnny.

Two days later, she is running around like she always does. There are a few things that she needs help with that she could do before. She needs help in the bathroom again, but she is doing really well doing things one handed. She doesn't complain about pain or anything. Tomorrow I call the ortho to see about that pink cast.