"Fracture" is not a good word

Monday night began like any other night. I was happily cooking a non-gourmet meal in the kitchen when I heard a terrible thud in the office followed by strained cries from Whit. I went to check on her and found that she had been standing on one of swivelly office chairs and took a tumble. She was holding her left arm and my mother's intuition told me it was more than just a bump. Andrew was on his way home and when he got here, we both decided she needed to go to the Emergency Room.

Greg and Nicolle agreed to watch B-train and we headed to the hospital. My fears were confirmed. They did x-rays and found that she FRACTURED her humerus, right by the elbow. That's NOT a word that you want to hear in connection with your little girl. Apparently she tried to catch herself when she fell and her elbow hyper-extended. It ended up breaking off a little chip of bone near the elbow.

She was SUCH a brave little girl.

Here she was getting her x-rays.

The news kept getting worse because the type of fracture she has can't be set. Instead they have to do SURGERY--another word I could've done without. Since she had eaten dinner right before we came in, they had to wait until the morning to do the procedure.

The worst part of the whole experience:
GETTING THIS I.V. IN HER ARM!

The phlebotomist turned to me before she started and said, "Are you going to be ok, Mom?" I calmly told her yes, but almost didn't make it. It was torture to watch them digging around with that needle in Whit's arm as she screamed and looked as us like, "Why aren't you stopping them?" Terrible. Terrible.

They don't admit pediatric patients to the hospital where we checked in. (Good lesson for other local parents: If you ever need to take your kids to the ER, go to Moses Cone. They have a separate ER for kids and can admit your child if that becomes necessary. We'll know for next time.) So, we had to transfer to Moses Cone and Whitney and Andrew spent the night there. I came home to get a few hours rest and some extra clothes for W and Drew. Then got back to the hospital by 6:30 the next morning when they started prepping her for surgery.

Her surgeon(Dr. Norris) was such a nice guy. He was a dad of young kids and you could just tell he was very caring and patient. It was comforting. With Whitney's eye surgeries, they let at least one of us stay with her up until the moment she is under anesthesia, but not at this hospital. They wheeled her away from us when she was still awake. I was so worried she was going to freak out. I would have if I was her. Dr. Norris told us that they give her something to make her forget that whole part of the experience.

The surgery went well. She is in a soft splint for the next week and will get a cast put on after that. When Dr. Norris came out to tell us how it went, he said that she wasn't even crying when she left us and she talked to him all the way up until the moment she went under. He told us about their conversation--that she can get dressed all by herself. Dr. Norris has a two-year-old son who doesn't know how to dress himself yet, so he asked Whit if he would come to her house and help teach her son how to do that. She agreed. He said he was impressed with how personable she was and just loved to meet people.

Well, the medicine they gave her to "forget everything" didn't work. As soon as she came out of anesthesia, she told Andrew and I that her doctor wanted her to come to his house and teach his two-year-old son, John, how to get dressed. He has three little boys and no girls. It cracked us up!

She was a happy girl when she got out of surgery.

"My arm's all fixed up!"
I think she was most happy that she got to lie
in bed and watch cable TV cartoons all morning.
Lucky!

They had us hang around the hospital until lunch time to make sure Whit could keep her food down. I understood their reasoning, but was getting anxious to get out of there. At Duke for her previous surgeries, they really get you out of there quickly. They just give her some sprite and graham crackers, make sure she doesn't throw up and then send you on your way. It was hard to just hang out in that room for FOUR hours while we waited for lunch to be delivered. Ok, I'll admit that part of the problem was that I was STARVING. I had packed some snacks for Andrew and me, but they didn't cut it for the amount of time that we stayed.

Here she is ready to go home,

holding her new bear, Snugglish.

She did pretty well last night and ate a good breakfast this morning. Getting dressed is going to be a challenge for the next few weeks. I have a feeling we'll be borrowing a lot of baggy T-shirts from Brandon.

HUGE thank to Greg and Nicolle and Ben and April for taking care of B-train during this whole ordeal. And thanks to many of you for your phone calls and prayers.