Black Cloud

 Last week, I reported that we had started to see light at the end of the tunnel. In hindsight, it turns out, that while it appears we were at the end of that tunnel, there was another one right behind it. This week has felt like a cruel joke.

Monday, Elsie came home early from school with a stomach ache. While CC's chest pain has been feeling way better, both girls have been battling some stomach issues. After a little TLC, Elsie was feeling a little better and everyone went to school on Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday was also my birthday and while I had to work and do all my regular adulting, it was blissfully quiet. 48 hours. We had 48 good hours and then the other shoe fell.

Thursday, just after lunch, I got a call from Elsie's school. They said she had hurt her arm at school and that I needed to come pick her up. When I got to the school, it was clear that she was in a lot of pain. I decided to take her straight to urgent care to rule out a break.

Unfortunately, at urgent care, rather than ruling out a break, they confirmed it. The said they couldn't cast it and we needed to head to the pediatric ER immediately. Because I am apparently living under a black cloud, I realized I didn't have enough gas to get to the hospital and I had to stop with my very distressed daughter and get some gas. I pulled into an overpriced station on the way and handed my card to the attendant, telling him to just put $10 in. He tried my card and it didn't work. He said I would need to go inside and talk to them. I told him I couldn't get my daughter out of the car and could I try a different card or different pump. He told me to scoot back and try the pump behind me. I tried a different card on that pump and it still didn't work. I don't know if it was their pumps or user error, but clearly a card wasn't going to work. Between Elsie and I, we had $4 in cash so I got $4 of gas a prayed it would be enough to get to the hospital.

We finally made it about 3:45 and the epic wait began. You would think when you arrive with an already diagnosed broken arm, that there would be some sense of urgency, but apparently not so much. We finally got in, they got her some pain med, and we did repeat x-rays. They told us that she needed to have surgery, but that couldn't happen until the next day, so they splinted her arm and sent us home. They told us to keep her as comfortable as possible overnight and report to the orthopedist at 9am the next morning. We headed home about 9pm (and got to make yet another stop for gas on the way). Oh, and because they didn't originally know if they would send her for surgery that night, they would not let her eat or drink anything all afternoon/evening.

Our waiting continued at the orthopedist the next morning. We were considered a "walk-in", but they did at least know we were coming and had a tentative plan for us. She had two breaks. One above her elbow that was not displaced, and one below that was displaced. After meeting with the orthopedist and discussing the surgery plan, we were sent to report at the hospital around 10:30.

We were told they had to work us in to the OR schedule, but it would probably be early afternoon and sure enough, about 1:15 they wheeled her off to get started. The first choice was to try and manipulate the bone into place from the outside. That was unsuccessful. The second choice was to insert a wire temporarily to push it back into place. That was successful. Because they were able to get it with "choice B", they didn't have to go with "choice C" or "choice D", which involved putting in temporary pins or a permanent wire or opening her elbow to correct the problem.

The surgery took a little less than 2 hours and then the recovery began. Elsie was in a lot of pain and pretty sad as she woke up. She was also pretty loopy. She kept pointing at the Trolls movie she was watching. When we asked her what she was pointing at she said "why is there two of them?". She was seeing double and it really made her upset. 

Eventually, we got her calmed down and only seeing one of everything and were able to head home and start the road to recovery. We came up from the basement of the hospital, where we had spent the day, and found a double rainbow welcoming us. It has been a brutal few days, on the heals of a brutal year, but I'm hanging on to that rainbow. Maybe the black cloud that has been over us will soon produce a rainbow. Closing in on 48 hours later, we have seen a big reduction in pain.

In the mist of all this drama, Merrick also had a big weekend. He had Homecoming. It was a rainy, windy, yucky day, but they still attempted pictures outside. They then went to a fancy dinner before heading to the dance. They stayed at the dance for about an hour before going to Merrick's date, Inez's house to watch a movie. At least Merrick had some fun this weekend.