It’s not Summer without a broken arm.
Posted in Trips to the Dr by: Alisa
Tru was gliding across a small “zip line” at the park and fell off and landed on his left arm in the sand and broke his arm. Hmm, you’re saying. Didn’t Truman break his left arm at the elbow last Fall? Yes he did. Same arm but the break is a little further up and it’s clean through this time. From what I understand the bone is currently being held on by the tendon that runs down it.
Scott took him to the Emergency Room yesterday around 2pm and called me with word that Tru needed surgery around 4pm. My mom came over and watched the kids so I could go over and sit with Tru and Scott while we waited for the surgery. Truman was asleep when I got to the hospital so Scott and I got a chance to talk about what was happening.
I can not tell you how wonderful our experience at Kaiser was. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was incredibly nice. Sure the process took a long time but no one was curt or grumpy or at all annoyed with us even though Truman’s surgery was the last of the day and after hours. That means people had to stay late to fix up our little boy. I love Kaiser and have never had a bad experience with them but this one tops them all.
Truman went into surgery around 7pm and came out close to 9pm. The Schlegel’s were there to sit with us. They put 3 pins in his arm to keep the bone in place. The only scary part of the day was when he woke up from the surgery. He was thrashing around in the bed , writhing in pain, crying that his arm hurt. It was so hard not being able to help him. I asked the nurse later if that was common for kids to wake up that harshly and she said yes. Once he calmed down he didn’t complain about his arm at all. No pain meds. Though they did give him some during the surgery, I guess they just took a while to set in.
He came home last night close to 10pm. Apparently they don’t keep anyone anymore. Who knew. It was so nice to have him home. It made it feel like I could finally take care of him. I mean, we’ve had broken bones before. We know what to do. Now we’re on familiar ground. It feels great.
You can see a teddy bear in the pictures and a cut up gown that he wore in the hospital. They give all the kids teddy bears and when they come out of surgery the bear has a dressing on his wound just like the kid has. What a great idea!! I’m telling you, the best experience. It was magical how smoothly everything went.
Truman doesn’t want to take the Tylenol with Codein because he doesn’t want to feel sleepy so we’ve just been giving him Children’s Tylenol. It seems to be working. Truman is in a really good mood and besides favoring his arm is totally healthy and hanging out with the kids.
Whew. We got our first surgery under our belts. I’m not saying I want to do it again but it was such a great experience I’m not scared for it to happen again. We are very fortunate to have such good doctors and nurses to take care of our kids.
Truman goes back on Friday for more x-rays and to get a hard cast put on. I’ll post more pictures and an update then.
The last picture is my visitors sticker. In case you can’t read it they spelled our last name: STHLEGER. Hilarious. Even that made it a great experience.
The boys and Jessica (our neighbor) and I go to Great America every Thursday and we pretty much have a routine. Meet the other families in the kids area, go to Boomerang Bay and play in the water, then split from the group and do some of the bigger rides. Today Tru needed a bathroom break so we ended up going by the ride Delirium. He asked if he could ride it so we asked the other kids if they wanted to go on and they all said no so Tru decided to ride it by himself.
The ride spins in a circle and swings back and forth so at some point, more than once, you end up staring straight down at the ground lying on the harness. The line wasn’t too long so I told Tru he could go on it. While he was at the end of the line where I could still stand near him a group of teenage girls came up and asked if I was in line. I told them I wasn’t but that Tru was (I’m always scared that older kids will walk all over my little kids in line so I was asserting his position). One of the girl’s squealed and asked if he was riding by himself. I told them he was and all of a sudden he became their little pet. ”Look how beautiful his eyes are.” Petting his hair. It was hilarious. At least I knew he would be in good hands while he was in line. He ended up sitting in between the girls on the ride and at one point during the spinning I looked up and he was holding one of their hands. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen.
Max turned the big 8 yesterday and things went really well for the birthday boy. The festivities started Saturday night when we gave Max an early birthday present. It was a Betta fish that Max named Colorful. Even though we can’t touch Colorful we’ve tried to make sure the kids notice Colorful and talk to him and feed him and make sure he’s a part of our family.
I’ve got a picture here of Colorful and you’ll have to excuse the glare I tried several different settings on the camera and the use of a flashlight for lighting and these are the best photos I got. He comes out much more vibrant on film than he looks in our drab living room.
Then on Sunday he chose Top Ramen for dinner and then the Schlegel’s and Grandma Sandy came over for cake and ice cream and presents. He had a great time hanging out with family and loved all the attention on his special day.
