Dislocation

Last Monday, as my visiting teachers were over at our house, Lilie ran inside wailing,

"I BROKE MY BONES!!! I BROKE MY BONES!!! AHHHHH! HELP ME!!!"

As I looked at her arm, I could tell that something was definitely "off" and gingerly felt it, only to conclude that the entire bone felt out of place and she'd "just" dislocated her elbow. (You see, we've had prior experience with both broken arms AND dislocation, so I'm an expert now.)

If you like Lilie's "Bee Movie" from many years past, you should have been with us that afternoon. I sort of hate myself for the difficulty of keeping a straight face when my girl is in pain, but my goodness . . . she is something to behold.

"OH, WHY DID I DO THAT? I'M SO SAD I DID THIS! AAHHHHHHH! IT HURTS TO BAAD!!!"

Apparently, the girls had been playing on the swing set and trampoline and our resident dare-devil had made the carefully calculated decision that she could jump from the top of the slide to the trampoline . . . but had slipped before she even took flight. It's only about a four foot drop to the ground, but she landed right on her arm.

My visiting teachers were awesome and took the mayhem in stride (also having trouble keeping straight faces). We'd finished school and since we didn't have anywhere to go for the rest of the day, I was still in my fleecy "aztec-looking" leggings and an oversized hoodie. (Hot.) They told me that they could watch my kids while I took Lilie over to the Ready-Care. With that (miraculously) in hand, I told Lilie we would go straight there, I just needed to change into some "real pants". She yelled, "YOU DON'T NEED REAL PANTS!!!"

Hazel was very concerned about her sister, but the other girls are quite used to hysterics, so while I was quickly changing, they started playing and giggling. Lilie then yelled at them, "Oh! HOW CAN YOU BE HAPPY AT A TIME LIKE THIS??!"

Both properly dressed, Lilie and I made a speedy exit.

When Lilie was tiny, while playing with her daddy, she'd gotten "nursemaid's elbow" -- which is a very minor dislocation that can easily happen in toddlers. The remedy is fast and gives immediate relief. I was imagining this dislocation to be about like that.

We arrived at the Ready Care with Lilie practically screaming, where they deliberated for 25 minutes on whether or not they could "squeeze her in." About 5 minutes after we finally got into a room, a nurse decided we should just go down to the ER. (eye rolling)

All this time, I keep thinking, "How big a deal can it be? Pop that thing back in place and put the poor kid out of her misery! The ER? That seems excessive..."  Yes. I'm critical when I'm trying to not be worried.

Turns out REAL elbow dislocations ARE a big deal. Once we got into a room, they had to do an x-ray before all else. Had she broken anything, they would have just taken her into surgery. But, OH, the pain of positioning for those x-rays! She let everyone on that floor know that she was NOT HAPPY about moving her arm!

Poor girl. She was a wreck. She just kept saying, "Why is this happening to me? Why did I do this? AHHHHH! I can't do this anymore!!! My poor little arm!!!" She was given an IV (which she barely noticed) and administered morphine, which barely took the edge off the pain. They dimmed the lights and she started into a meditative "Oooooommmmm . . .."

With the IV and x-rays done, they were finally ready to put the bones back in place. Even with the morphine, she was going to be in a lot of pain, so they gave her a heavy dose of ketamine to drug her up and make her forget what happened next.

I was amazed at how hard they had to pull to get that humerus back in joint and SO thankful for modern medicine. After another x-ray they were able to splint and wrap.

This is my favorite picture of the night. She was SO out of it!
Her eyes were open, but no one was home. :)

All told, Lilie's elbow was out of place for close to 3 hours. She is one tough cookie -- even when she didn't think she could take anymore. It took her more than an hour to come around - with great hilarity in the process. Before she was verbal, she made some awesome faces.

And once she could talk . . . SO funny.

Lilie? Lilie. Do you know where we are?

"Uuuhhhhhhhhhhh. Yeeaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh . . . H, H, Hooooooooooo. Dooooooooooocc."

Yeah. We're at the hospital. The doctor fixed your arm.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrmmmmm. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrmmmmm. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmm . . . . "

Does it feel like your head is full of fluff?

"YeeaaaaAAAAAAAaaaaahhhhhh!"

All while her poor little pin-point eyes couldn't focus on anything!

"Moooooomm! You have twooo eyes!"

Lilie, I always have two eyes.  :)

"Ooooh! Yooou have FOOUR eyes!"


Then she started throwing up. Over and over. Darn morphine.


She was instructed to keep the splint on and report to the orthopedic surgeon in a week.

She's done well. The first five days, we were grateful for the hyrdocodone, but she's finally doing well with just some ibuprofen. Her elbow is still REALLY swollen and bruised and I've been extremely concerned that she still has very little feeling in three of her fingers. She can't bend her pointer finger or thumb at all.

At the ortho today we got a good understanding of why my concern is currently unfounded.

 ^^above^^ This is what her bones are supposed to look like (taken today).

^^ The above are the x-rays taken last Monday at the ER. ^^

Yikes!! Dr. Pennington said that to even dislocate your elbow, it has to tear the ligaments. With as badly as Lilie dislocated hers, all those tough little ligaments got shredded. She'll remain in this splint for at least another two weeks and then we'll reevaluate. Hopefully as the swelling goes down she'll regain feeling and mobility in her fingers. Until everything heals up, the risk of re-dislocation is high, so we'll only be doing some small bending exercises. Mostly just waiting.

Lilie with her customized sling at the ortho today. The size "small" sling we got from the hospital
was too small (the medium was too big) and the angle was all wrong with the splint,
so I made her a new one.
Of course her consolation monkey from the hospital had to have one too. :)

Hooray for some fun bathing days in the weeks ahead and a creative Halloween costume! :)

Sisters

"I could never love anyone as I love my sisters." ~Little Women

I think Lilie is the best medicine in all the world for Hazel! She has felt better since Lilie got here than she has all day. It's been kind of a rough day, but Hazel is like a completely renewed patient with Lilie here. Restored her spirit.

When Nels explained the seriousness of the situation to Lilie last night, she just lost it. She told me that she was just running all around the house so, so afraid. Nels said she was carrying on something fierce - about how sad and scared she was. She was disappointed at canceling our trip to Seattle, but really, really worried about Hazel.

When Nels and I traded off for an hour last night so I could go get some things, I returned home to find Lilie sleeping in Elsie's bunk bed with her. When I asked her about it today she said she was just scared. To which I replied, "So you just needed to snuggle a sister, huh?" She took a big breath and said, "Yeah ... But when it's like that, even a brother would do." :)

Elsie was much more logical than Lilie. :) While Lilie lost her head, :) Elsie reassured her that everything was going to be okay and it was just fine that we weren't going on our trip, because Hazel was more important.

Such sweet girls. I love them so!

I just can't imagine anything in the world better than having your sisters be your best friends.

Dropping the Ball

Tonight I lay next to my sweet Hazel while she receives hefty antibiotics and morphine.

I am overcome with immense guilt.

I don't know how to deal with it. I can't sleep. I want to just stay awake and stroke her hair and watch over get to make sure that she's okay.

I should have brought her in Sunday night. As I went down the list of symptoms for appendicitis, I could check off every. single. one.

In the end I hesitated --- vacillating over a minor detail and not wanting to spend the extra money on an unwarranted ER visit.

I could put some blame on the misdiagnosis of the pediatrician we saw the next morning, but in the end, I feel like I failed my daughter by not taking her in the night before. For discounting her pain for the next 36 hours. For pushing down my concern at her intermittent fever. For attributing her sallow complexion to not eating for a couple days.

I should have done better.


I'm so sorry, Hazel.
You are so beautiful and so good.
You are far stronger and braver than I gave you credit for.
Please forgive my weaknesses and stupidity.
Please know that there is no price so high that I wouldn't pay it to see you happy and healthy.
You amaze me with your strength and kindness and and gentleness.
I feel I don't deserve you, but thank you for being so forgiving as I stumble my way so clumsily through motherhood.
Thank you for the example that you set for me.
You and your sisters are my greatest gift.
I love you with my whole heart.
I'm so sorry that so much of the time I don't know what I'm doing or how to do it.



12 hours ago, after a second visit to the pediatrician in as many days, Hazel and I were sent to the hospital for a CT scan and it was quickly determined that she had a ruptured appendix. She was immediately prepped for and underwent a laparoscopic surgery to remove the offender and the resulting infection. She and I will be spending the next couple of days here in the hospital as she recovers.

Humpty Dumpty

I feel like I say it over and over and over all day.

"Get down." "Don't climb on the couch." "We don't live in a jungle gym."

As I sat feeding Clara this afternoon, Elsie climbed up beside me, then perched herself behind me on the couch, then promptly fell off the back.

She started crying, but you know what? With five kookoo kids, crying just doesn't phase me too much anymore. She said her hand hurt and it wasn't like she was hysterical, so I told her to just come sit by me for a minute - sure that the drama would pass.

A minute or two later, she was still complaining, so I put Clara down and sat her on my lap to examine her hand. I couldn't find anything wrong with it. Another minute passed and she still hadn't forgotten about it, so I started looking for swelling and feeling her arm.

At that point I finally noticed a big dip in her arm where her solid bones should be and realized immediately that she'd broken it. Mother of the Year moment right there.

Nels came home and gave Elsie a Priesthood blessing before we headed to the ER.

That sweet girl. After getting to the hospital, I think she had everyone there fooled into thinking that her arm wasn't even broken - she was so chipper. However after X-rays, it was revealed that she'd actually broken both bones in her arm. Neither was really bad, but enough that they will need to set the bones before they cast it all up.

They put her in a splint and a cute little hospital gown and sent her home for the night with instructions to return tomorrow morning by 7:30. To set the bones, the surgeon said its MUCH less traumatic for children to just be sedated and then get it done quickly and correctly.

I'm kind of scared for her. I don't like my babies to be in pain.

Hopefully we'll be home by lunchtime to make Violet's birthday cake and celebrate.

I have a feeling that balloons, a happy little two-year-old, and Grandma Merkley's Angel Food Cake will make everyone feel better. :)

Photos out of order. Sorry. Phone blogging.

One Long Month!

Well, I think I can say that this has been one of the longest months of my life...very eventful, exhausting, and happy (mostly) all at the same time. You would think that just the fact that we have a new baby would constitute an opening like that, but no, we've had way more fun that JUST that.

Our beautiful baby girl was born on the 3rd and we are so happy that she is here! She has proven to be such a sweet little baby and has a really calm, gentle little spirit. My mother came up for the week after she was born and it was such a blessing to have her here to take care of all of us!

The weekend after my mom left, we went over to western Idaho to attend our niece's baptism in Twin Falls. It was wonderful to see Nels' family and by the time we were leaving Twin, headed back to Mnt. Home, we were all pretty exhausted! As we were leaving the city, our poor van got a very rude "kick" to the bum by a Toyota Tacoma. The girls didn't think it was that fun either. We spent an hour or so with a cop and the driver of the truck (who I believe was lighting a cigarette at the time of the accident) in a Wendy's parking lot. Other than a bent frame, demolished bumper, and doors that are difficult to open, we all are fine, but it's been quite a pain taking care of all the insurance stuff related to being rear-ended.

The day after we got back from Mnt. Home, I packed the girls down to my parents house for a brief visit to drop off and pick up a few things. We left my parents home at 6:00 one morning to make it back to Idaho Falls in time for a dentist appointment for Hazel, a 2 week check up for Elsie at the pediatrician, and another appointment here at the house that afternoon to get new windows installed. (They look really fantastic, by the way)

At her appointment with the doctor, Elsie had a bit of a cold that she had picked up from her lovey sisters, but she was doing just fine and growing well, just needing regular cleanings with the bulb syringe. By Friday night she had started doing strange little grunty sounds every time she breathed and we decided to take her to the ER to just make sure that she was okay and to make sure she didn't have RSV or something. That night they not only checked for RSV (a miserable experience in and of itself) they also drew 3 vials of blood, started giving her fluids and antibiotics through an IV, did a catheter to check for a UTI, an x-ray to check for pneumonia, put her on oxygen to help her breathe better, and a spinal tap to check to meningitis. (By the time they did the spinal tap, I was crying too.) They then admitted her so that they could figure out what was going on and to keep an eye on her. Four days later, she was doing much better and finally able to breathe okay without the oxygen, so they sent us home. The doctor figures that it was possible that she had a touch of pneumonia or possibly a new virus (very similar in all respects to RSV) called meta pneuma virus. It's quite the experience to got to the doctor expecting to stay a few hours and instead be admitted for FOUR days!!! While I stayed at the hospital with Elsie, Nels's spectacular sisters practically lived at our house to take care of Hazel and Lilie. By the end of our stay at the hospital, poor Elsie would squirm and boob every time someone would even come in our room and check her vitals. I think she had learned that pretty much every time someone comes in they would hurt her. Needless to say, she is really happy to no longer be hooked up to three different machines and to be dressed and to be home with her loud sisters.


This is the face she made when I asked her how she liked her trip to the hospital. ;) I wish I'd gotten some pictures of Elsie at the hospital, hooked up to all the little machines, but alas, a remembering a camera just wasn't on my list of essentials...especially when I hadn't showered in days! :)

My sweet mother once again made the 3 hour trip up to Idaho Falls this week to help take care of my little family. She was only here for a day, but she helped me get done all the "catch-up" things that would have taken me a week to complete. I just can't even express how thankful I feel to have such a spectacular mother who is so willing to serve and bless us. I love her SO much! Nels and I have both been blessed with truly wonderful families!

Elsie is doing so well here at home and I'm so thankful for the blessing of modern medicine! The Lord has blessed us immensely! Now our biggest concern is trying to get the leaves in the backyard raked up and trying to find or make some costumes for the girls for Halloween!



If all else fails, maybe these self-made costumes will work for Halloween!