Saturday, November 7, 2009

Welcome to the Emergency Room Club!

Well...it finally happened: our official welcome to the parents of the emergency room. After 6 1/2 years in the child-rearing business we made our first trip to the emergency room for a broken bone yesterday. And not completely surprisingly, Alice that was the little one that thought it was time for our induction!

Thankfully, it wasn't one of those moments of panic that sent us speeding down the road to the ER. No, we decided to think about it for a night first. Just to warm up to the idea.

Alice fell down the stairs on Thursday evening. I was somewhat surprised that it was such an innocent event. Just an accident--a trip. Not a daring leap from the counter or some other ridiculous stunt. Alice still doesn't talk, so with lots of shaking her head "yes" and "no" we decided she had pulled a muscle in her neck. She laid flat and completely still and didn't want anyone to touch her all evening (very strange...and somewhat nice...this kid never holds still!) By Friday morning she was still in a lot of pain so we thought we'd better get some x-rays just to be sure. So, we leisurely farmed Maya out to play with friends (thanks Alicia!), found someone to pick up Hayley from school later (thanks Becky!) and waited for Ryan to come home from work before we began our adventure at the ER.

After some painful examinations and x-rays the determination was a broken collar bone. The doctor assured us that this was a good bone to break--it heals quickly and cleanly. No casts. Just pain for a week or so. We have a cute little sling but of course that is a little too confining so she mostly just holds her arm by her side. We're happy that she's at least off the couch and moving around and hoping we don't have to grace the halls of the ER anytime soon again!

7 comments:

Aim Aug said...

Oh no! What happened?! I can't see any of your text for some reason. I think I see a cast in your future?

Anna said...

She's still smiling though hey??!!! At our A+E they give the kids a teddy bear!

Miss Beevers said...

Its amazing how resilient children are!!! Its the parent who suffer the most with anxiety! Hope she heals quickly!

Kayelynn said...

I'm still knocking on wood... :) Glad to hear she will be O.K.

I remember as a kid we thought it would be cool to have a cast or sling. My mom would take a large kitchen towel and tie it around our forearm and around our shoulder so we could play "dress-up".

Krista said...

Wow!! I am glad she is okay. That's still a bit stressful even though it wasn't a frantic visit!! Hope she gets better soon!!

Gina said...

Oh! Poor thing! I can't believe it!She looks really happy in the picture, though. Glad you could join the ER club!

Tammy said...

Oh dear...we didn't get to talk about this on the phone. She looks pretty saavy with that sling on. How do you keep a 1 year old to keep their arm in a sling?