Ninja

While enjoying a semi-informational Relief Society night on organization, I get a phone call from home.  I ignore it because I know the kids are with their dad and he can handle stuff.  Then I get a second call-- this time from Robert.  He says, "Nate hurt his arm on the trampoline.  I'm going to instacare. " Oh, Great! a broken arm.  But nothing I haven't seen before.  

"I'll meet you there."

"No, I can handle it.  I got this.  You don't think I can handle it?"

"I'll meet you there."

When I arrived at said Instacare Nate was cradled in his dad's arms not saying a word or making a noise, but everytime we moved, a sharp intake of breath from him.  The nurse at the instacare says, "I'm thinking you'd better just to go the emergency room, the quiet ones are usually hurt really bad."When you ask him what happened he says he was playing ninja on the tramp.  He did not fall off, just fell wrong.  Rethinking that thing, let me tell ya!

So we head over to the ER where they took THIS x-ray`

 No words Needed. I am assuming that no matter your level of medical expertise you can see what's going on here.  I am, at this point so incredibly sad for my little guy.  This is way bad.  Everyone at the hospital said to me, "Wow!  Impressive x-ray."  Apparently impressive is ER Slang for Massive,  unprecedented, Uber-nasty and other such extremes.

 X-ray.  He was so tough.  This, my kid who is often and easily "not tough".

 Prepping for surgery.  The plan was for 45 minute surgery.  The doctor hoped he could set it without having to open the skin.    Nate is alert and asking questions.  What is the O.R.?  Will I be able to ride the rides at Disneyland? (a coming up family vacay) What do you mean I'll set off the alarms at an airport?

 Post-op.  a 45 minute surgery turns into a 2 hour surgery.  This is what my fingernails looked like.
Forget it. You don't need a visual.  Just imagine pacing the waiting room at 2 in the morning.  The silence between us immense as we are afraid to face the chance that something has gone terribly wrong.  Finally, a door opens and Dr. Anderson tells us it was much worse than he thought and this is what he had to do.

Chopsticks. 

LAME: Lame hospital policy states that Pediatric patients must be discharged from the Pediatric unit which is 8 blocks away.  So just barely post op, he has to travel by ambulance to the ped's unit. LAME.

 After arriving home at 4:30, a.m. and more than a little doped up on Lortab, Nate is happy to be awake.  a little bit of time with Katie's ipod is all he needs (inherited from Amy, with a very cracked screen.  Lest you think we just LET our children have these devices).

 THENTHIS HAPPENED:

Super bad timing, but it was already on its way.  Accidents are never convenient.

We laid 10,800 feet of sod in our backyard so now it looks like this...

The next day (Sunday)  I noticed N's hand was VERY swollen.  I had a doctor in our ward look at it and he was pretty concerned so N and I left church and went back to the ER where they removed the Splint and rewrapped it a bit looser.  Happy Mother's Day to me.

Seriously Gross, Huh!!!  The Green balls are beads to help pull out the pins eventually.  Even though the angle is making it bigger than usual, it's a pretty swollen arm. 

So, I made the executive decision to keep N home from school for the rest of the year to protect his arm and monitor his recovery.  It's too impossible to elevate it at school and it needs to be.  So today we've homeschooled.  He counted M&M's to 1000 (thanks to our friend the Bayles') and did multiplication on the ipad & Finished reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.