Sunday, August 29, 2010

How Not to Enjoy a Birthday Party

Friday started like any other day, with 5 little girls in my house by 8am.

Friday ended like no other day, with a visit to the Radiology lab of the local hospital.

Vicki went to a birthday party at her friend's house.  They were instructed to bring their swimsuits and were playing water games in the backyard.  Apparently while playing some sort of a relay race, she put her wet feet on a wet slide.  You can imagine what happened next.

The end result was a lot of pain and a goose egg-like lump just above her wrist.  I was made aware of this as soon as it happened, but the friend's parents and I agreed that some Ibuprofen and ice would probably solve the problem.  When I got there to pick her up towards the end of the party, it didn't look too bad to me - no screaming, no weird colors, no odd angles - and I would probably have just told her to hang in there and we'd see how it felt in the morning.  You know, the standard I-know-it's-not-as-bad-as-you're-trying-to-make-me-believe-it-is response.

But the friend's dad happens to be a chiropractor, and he said after looking at it that he was 80% sure something was fractured, and that I should probably take her in for an X-ray.  So I called the pediatrician, and they said if we could be there in the next 15-20 minutes, they'd hang around and wait for us (it was 5:30 on a Friday.)  I left the other two girls at the friends' house and Vicki and I took off.

Two and a half hours, several X-rays, and two Magic Tree House books later, we were back home with Vicki sporting a bright red cast/splint-type thing.



There's a little bit of bone sticking out where it shouldn't be.

You can see it better in this one.  Those bones are supposed to line up.
She's a major trooper, this kid.  Her right arm is broken in two places, but she stayed cheerful the whole time we were at the doctor's office and the hospital, and she insisted that we stick with our plans to spend Saturday on Mt. Hood.  She's pretty frustrated at this point by all the things she can't do one-handed, though.  And of course she's right-handed, so school is going to be interesting for a few weeks.  But with a cast on her arm on the first day, she'll probably be the most popular kid there.

"Mom!  Stop taking my picture!"
And she's earned herself a whole slew of new nicknames: "Bones", "One-armed Wilma", and the family favorite, "Slip-n-Slide".

5 comments:

  1. Ugh!! I was about her age when I broke my arm. I still have pretty good writing from having to use my left hand instead of my right. What sucked at the time was that it was almost summer time and we lived in southern California and my grandma had a pool... no swimming for me. :( It was very sad. And back in MY day, we didn't get cool colored casts. They were just plain ol' white. Of course, once everyone signed the case it wasn't so white anymore...

    I bet Vicki is super excited about all the chores she now gets out of doing. Mwa ha ha ha!!! ;)

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  2. Ooooo poor girl. (Although I have to admit she seems to be enjoying herself in that picture!) Glad she was such a good sport. I am surprised that they cast it. Down here they say you have to wait a week to cast.

    Glad it happened at the end of the summer though, rather than the beginning!

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  3. Em, it's not technically a cast, I guess. It's more of a splint wrapped in colorful ace-bandage stuff. We go back in in a couple of days and they'll probably put on an actual cast then. I think they wait so the swelling has a chance to go down.

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  4. That is what I thought that they said, when Abbie broke her arm.

    Unrelated - your live traffic feed says I'm from American Fork. Hmmm. I never what to be from American Fork. Also you had a visitor from Bangladesh. Cool!

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