Longest. Night. Ever.

 

This past Sunday afternoon, the kids were in the backyard playing with Rachel and Hannah on the trampoline, H came running in to tell us LE was hurt.  Ben went out and a few moments later I peeked out and saw him running in, he greeted me with "her arm's broken".  I am thinking how in the world could he know for certain it was broken.  She is laying on the trampoline as calm as she could be and said, "Mommy, I want a doctor".  The bone was protruding out of her arm, not through the skin, but this bump coming out near her elbow.  I had Rachel run get her mom, R2 and HR were napping and we loaded her in the backseat in a makeshift sling made from a pillow case.
Ben held her in the backseat and I found every single bump between our home and Williamson Seton Hospital's ER.  We walked right into a room and two doctors were there to examine her.  We had x-rays within minutes and I was standing behind the x-ray machine to see the ulna bone was broken in half and the radial bone had come loose from the elbow socket.  They gave her an IV and a dose of morphine.  The doctor recommended surgery, but he wanted to transfer her to Dell Children's Hospital b/c they would not administer anesthesia to her at Williamson.  They had to call an ambulance from Austin to transfer her and I told her I would run home and get Fluffles and the Ipad, b/c they informed us it was going to be a long night ahead.  Little did they know...
I took the back route to our house and Ben rode with her in the ambulance.  They did not make it very far onto I-35 when they were diverted onto the access road, along with everyone on the interstate due to a young man falling from an overpass in RR.  It took them over 2 1/2 hours to get to the children's hospital, a trip that should have taken less than 30 minutes.  Poor baby's meds were worn off and she had to use a make-shift potty in the back of an ambulance (with no a.c).  Let's just say it was ordained by God, that Mommy ran to the house to get supplies and Daddy got to ride in the ambulance.  In the time she left the hospital in RR, Gigi left her house and made it to our house before she arrived to the children's hospital (2+ hour long drive).

When she finally arrived at Dell, they immediately took her into a room and got her settled and took more x-rays.  She was down the hall and I could her scream when they adjusted her arm to take the pics.  The nurses were great, but she was so thirsty and she could not have anything to eat or drink b/c of the pending surgery.

The surgeon's nurse practitioner came in to inform us what to expect.  We were given 6 options,  5 of them would involve surgery and option A could be done without, but was the least probable of occurring given the circumstances.  We began praying and about an hour (1 a.m.) later they took us to the prep room for the operating room.  They administered the anesthesia while we were still with her and she kept begging me to please stop them and she did not want surgery.  She began to fall asleep, but was still not unconscious before they wheeled her away.  She was crying and begging for me.  Being the cryer that I am, well that pretty much got me.  They told us it would be any where from 45 minutes to 8 hours.  We were ushered to the OR waiting room and I finally found some vending machines.  We had a trail mix and within about 25 minutes a nurse came to tell us, they were able to set her arm without surgery.  Around 2 a.m. we were able to see her in the recovery room and about an hour later she was able to go to her own room.  She began to wake up when they took her vitals and I was able to tell her she did not have to have surgery.  She just smiled from ear to ear, and then fell back asleep.  She slept most of the remainder of the night, Ben was able to sleep on the hide-a-bed in her room and I tossed and turned all night.  The next morning, they told us if she could keep breakfast down they would begin the discharge process.  I told her during the night she could have anything she wanted for breakfast.  When I gave her the room service menu, she noticed they served coke for breakfast.  So, my 7 year old ordered her first soft drink ever for breakfast, along with bacon, biscuits and blueberry muffins.  Around 10 am, they discharged us and we drove home with a big blue block to support her arm in a 90 degree upright angle for 48 hours and a hot pink cast.