Two days ago my son came into the house and yelled through Alexa, "HELP!" after falling from the swingset and landing on his back. Today, my daughter came into the house shortly after school screaming this cry-scream that just from the sound, meant something serious had happened. Blake went running downstairs and I went to catch up with him.
When I got to the basement where she'd come in from the back yard, I saw her sitting on the sofa with one hand protecting her other wrist in a position I knew all too well. There was a bump on her wrist that couldn't have appeared that fast from swelling. Blake came back with a bag of ice and a cloth to cover my daughter's arm while I went to get the 128-Hz tuning fork to test on my daughter's arm.
That particular frequency will vibrate broken bones. If you don't have a break, it doesn't hurt at all, if there is a break, it hurts quite badly. It's a simple, quick test. It hurt and a lot at that when I touched the tuning fork lightly to her arm so I didn't do it more than twice; I had enough information. I told Blake and my daughter I was taking her to the orthopedic urgent care. My daughter wailed.
To be fair, she was already wailing, she just wailed more. Anything made her wail more at that point, and I couldn't blame her, she was in a lot of pain. I stepped into the next room, shut the door, called my husband who was picking my son up from school, and told him to get off speakerphone. I told him she had likely broken her arm and I was taking her to get it looked at and casted if so.
Getting her into the car was helped by Blake's good idea to sling her arm. Her brother had broken his arm last year and I knew right where the sling was. With that on, she could move a little easier while protecting her arm. Once we started the four-mile drive to the office I told her she needed to be prepared to hear she had a broken arm. She was very upset about it but I talked her through a lot of it, including getting people to sign your cast and her terror was slightly less by the time we arrived.
There were issues getting us in relating to insurance and while they figured out what to do with us my daughter tried to curl up in a ball on the floor. The nurse brought out a blanket so her face wouldn't be on the floor and I gave my daughter a dose of the hydrocodone prescription pain medication she had from one of her eye surgeries. I'm ever so glad I'd saved it, because she needed it an hour later.
They took an X-ray and the nurse gave me the, "oh that's definitely broken" nod before we even got to the X-ray room. She had a buckle fracture in her radius. They prepared the splint, which is cast-like in firmness, but allows for the limb to recover from inflammation and swelling before the final cast is put on in a week.
They had to set the break. I knew they were going to have to, they said as much without letting on to her what that meant. When it was time, they just did it. The nurse held down at her elbow and the doctor pulled and rotated upwards until the bone was back in place. I had told the doctor I'd given her some medication an hour prior in the waiting room (her medication at the dosage recommended by her doctor) and we both agreed it wasn't a bad call, because she screamed. And screamed. Setting broken bones hurts.
They took a second set of X-rays to confirm her bone was back in place and then we went to get a milkshake for her and pick up dinner for the family. That pain medication helped so much that before we left she told Dr. John she was not only not mad at him, she wanted him to pick the color of her cast next week and was sad he wouldn't be the one putting it on for her.
The Big Boy Update: My son very sweetly helped his sister when she got home tonight. He had a broken arm once, he remembers what it was like.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I got to talk to my daughter today about how I had broken bones when I was little and why setting them was so important, so they would heal correctly. I don't like to talk about being in pain, but both children know I'm in pain a lot. I told her when I was young at some unknown point during one tumble or fall or something, I broke my neck and it went undiagnosed. Mimi and Gramps didn't know and I didn't either. My neck didn't heal correctly and it caused degeneration over time and eventually, it was so bad I had to have two spinal fusions. And even that didn't solve the problem and I will always deal with pain. I told her any time anything happened to her or her brother I wanted to make sure the situation was addressed medically so they would heal as best as their body could. She asked a few questions and then she wanted to play the Genii game. Today, I got to be the genii and cast magic spells. I'm just glad she was in less pain than when she originally fell. It's hard to know your child is hurt.
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