I now give you
permission to point and laugh. (I’ll
join in.) Was my last post – 3 days ago,
titled “Crapalanche” – for real? Did we
all love how I spent a paragraph complaining about the annoying little things
that I’ve been dealing with? (Things
like cancelled credit cards. Wah, poor thing.)
I said my go-to lines of late: “I just want things to get easier” and “I’m
waiting for things to settle down, for life to get a little less complicated.” I didn’t even mention that we’ve been having
car problems…that we realized we hadn’t gotten the oil changed in the minivan
in WELL over a year (like possibly two years) and – gasp! Shocker! – that’s now
causing car issues. So, whatever, a
bunch of administrative annoyingness and car issues. Why was I complaining?!
Kayliana may have
broken her arm yesterday…again…her other arm.
Her right arm (the one to which over two years ago she dislocated her
elbow twice in three days). Last year –
four days after dad died – she kinda-sorta woke up with a broken left
elbow. They never did entirely figure it
out, but we spent 4 weeks after dad died going to go get more torturous (and
not exactly cheap) Xrays at Childrens’, just so they could scratch their heads
and say, “Well, we think it’s broken, we can’t quite tell though…let’s put a
different kind of cast on this week.” And
here we go again. But, now it seems to
be her right elbow—upper arm, we’re not sure…and they’re not either.
The sad, sad irony is
that I’d THOUGHT I was keeping her from getting injured. We’d just had thunder, lightning and hail
(ha! A fitting backdrop to my emotions);
maybe that’s what got her all charged up. Kayli started running around – zooming and
slipping in her socks on the hardwood floor.
“Kayliana,” I’d said,
“You’re going to fall and get hurt.” (Famous last words.)
A couple minutes
later, I say, “Stop running.”
(Meanwhile I’m also
helping Zachary with homework and am not totally 100% aware that Kayli
continues running.) Finally, I realize
it and say, “You’re not listening. I
said stop running.” I put her in
time-out (she sits on the bottom step.)
Immediately – instead of having the fit that usually accompanies this –
she puts on a sweet face and says, “I’m sorry, Mommy.”
I say, “Yeah,
awesome. You should’ve been sorry and
stopped the first time. You have to sit
in time-out and then we can talk
about how ‘sorry’ you are.” I set the
timer for four minutes and sit back down to 3rd grade math.
Maybe half-way
through her time-out, I hear too much noise – she’s hopping, jumping, dancing
(a la Ginger Rogers but without the grace and finesse) on the bottom two
stairs. I’m about to go when BOOM –
followed by high-pitched scream and then the long pause as she holds her breath
before letting out a HUGE sob. I can
tell right away there’s something wrong with her right arm. She fell off of the step landing on the
hardwood floor with all of her weight on her bent arm.
Shit.
They were able to get
us in for the very last appointment of the day – 6:20pm. We dropped the
unfed-and-still-needing-homework-to-be-finished boys at my amazing
neighbor-friend’s house (where she proceeded to – along with her 3rd
grade twin boys and 5th grade boy – feed them and get Matthew ready
for his weekly Friday exam.)
The doctor examined
Kayli’s arm – initially ruling out nursemaid’s elbow (the dislocation issue of
two years ago). They then did two xrays –
the second one more painful and awful than the first. (They wanted her arm straightened out with
palm up – yeah, there was no way Kayli was going to let her arm be moved like
that.) The result? Basically the same exact scenario as last
November: we see fluid build-up in her elbow, so can’t really see that there’s
an obvious break, but we’ll have to wait for the Radiologist to take a look at
in the morning. All I can say is – and Mike
agrees – there’s GOT to be a break or something
going on. She is in SO MUCH PAIN. It’s way worse than last time even. It’s awful.
So, we wait for the
call – which will probably be: “Nope, everything looks fine.” To which, I’ll have to put on my mean-mom
voice and say, “Everything is NOT fine.
She can’t move her arm and screams in pain when she barely shifts her
entire body to try to get comfortable.”
And then we’ll go to Childrens’ and spend WAY more money on a fancier
Xray…that might also tell us absolutely nothing.
It’s a bit of déjà vu,
and man, it sure brings up bad memories.
Last time, I remember sitting there in shock when the doctor said, “Well,
let’s do more Xrays…how’s next Wednesday?”
And I looked at him and said, “My dad’s funeral is next Wednesday.” They got us in on Tuesday.
I’m sad and frustrated
for so many reasons. Most of all,
because it’s HORRIBLE watching your children suffer and this seems to be the
worst we’ve had to see/hear/watch.
Kayliana is a tough cookie but holy crap she’s in pain. I’m also bummed because we finally felt like she was ready to do
more activities – she’s been in swim lessons (back with her favorite, awesome
teacher) and gymnastics (for the purpose of working out her wiggles AND learning
how to fall correctly)! If we’re looking
at a broken arm both of those things – which she LOVES – will have to be put on
hold for a while. And, I kid you not –
it takes swimming twice a week, gymnastics and me taking her for the occasional
run to use up her energy for good sleeping at night! I don’t want to have to stop that stuff (and
she won’t either)! And lastly, I’m
frustrated because, well, I was already stressed and feeling like we were
getting buried under a crapalanche of too much crap. Guess I was wrong. There was more crap to come.
Last night, once we
got her settled in bed, I was talking with her about how brave she was getting
the Xrays. Her eyes started to well up
with tears. I said, “It’s OK to be sad
and cry though. That hurts!”
She sniffed and said,
“I’m not crying. I’m sweating out of my eyeballs.”
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