They had spent the entire day playing outside, eating otter pops and making big plans for the summer, the first of which would be swimming lessons starting Monday morning! Greg was home for the rest of the day and we had been in the kitchen visiting with each other. I might have mentioned something about how lucky we had always been, never having had any serious illnesses or accidents, no broken bones or real stitches in our family...
It was starting to get later in the evening and Emma and Rory asked if they could "scooter around the block." We said sure have fun. About 2 minutes later Rory came in and said "Emma got hurt."
My sweet Emma has a slight tendency toward the dramatic so I told Rory to tell her to come inside and I will look at it, assuming it was just a skinned knee at worst. Rory proceeded to insist that, "No! She is REALLY hurt!!"
So I ran out front to find Emma bloody from head to toe and screaming as she stumbled toward the house. I told her to come to me and I would help her and she wailed, "I'M TRYING!!"
We brought her inside and started to clean her up and assess the damages. Nose was bleeding like crazy and mouth was covered in blood but all of the teeth were intact (after shattering my own front teeth as a kid that is always my first worry), she had a huge deep scrape on her knee and bloody road rash all down her legs. We started cleaning up the blood and we noticed she was holding her hand funny so I asked if her arm hurt and she held it out whimpering "yes..." By the sickening angle her whole hand flopped down at, I knew it was broken and that covered in blood or not, it was time to head to the emergency room.
Greg was amazing as he very quickly and effectively got the other kiddos situated and ready for us to be gone. We loaded Jo into the car and Greg called our friend Tom to meet us at the ER to help give Emma a priesthood blessing. Emma was in a lot of pain and was sobbing pretty hard the whole way. We waited about zero minutes at the ER before they got her back into a room (which by the way the new Winslow ER is absolutely amazing!!). They were able to get her some pain meds and started cleaning her up while we waited for Radiology. Tom and Saleena arrived and Tom and Greg gave Emma a sweet blessing that eased her mind and body. The cookies Saleena brought Emma didn't hurt either :)
The radiologist arrived with their new fancy schmancy portable X-ray machine and they did her X-rays right there in her bed. The X-ray machine was called something like RadPro 2000. I could tell Emma's pain meds were working because she kind of giggled and asked me, "Mom is it called the RadPro because it is a Professional at being Rad?"
The X-rays were visible right there on the screen and we could see pretty easily that yep, it was broken. The good news was it was the best kind of broken; stable, already aligned, and away from the growth plate so it would only need a simple cast. The bad news is being in a cast for a month meant cancelling those long-awaited swimming lessons. :)
They were concerned because her knee was so badly banged up so they X-rayed it too but it was perfectly healthy so YAY! Cleaning the rest of the road rash was pretty painful for her but she made it through. She had to wait a week for the swelling to go down so she was in a sling and splint for that time. Her siblings sure loved doting on her and protecting her arm, it was incredibly sweet. :)
Well the cast is still on and she has spent the summer on the side of the pool watching her siblings swim and cursing her stupid cast. But hopefully she will get it off this Saturday and then she is pool bound every free afternoon this summer :)
For all of you who love this kind of thing:
