Broken

Warning! Graphic pictures!!

 

A few days after we got back from California, I got a frantic phone call from Jason.  He said Lauren had broken her arm at school. 

It was 9:15 in the morning.  We were all off our normal routine after our trip.   Ashlyn was still asleep.  I had been in doing laundry (still in my pajamas) and had not heard my phone ring when the school called.  Luckily, they were able to reach Jason. 

 

Not knowing any of my neighbors well enough to call to come watch my kids, I quickly woke up Ashlyn and loaded her and Paige into the car.  I called my little sister, Janelle, on my way to the school to see if she could meet me at the hospital to take my little ones while we got Lauren's arm taken care of.  She said she would be there as soon as she could.  She also has little ones at home.  I called the school to let them know I was on my way.  I asked if they were sure it was broken.  Her voice sounded a little shaky when she replied, "yes".

 

When I pulled up, the principal was waiting outside with another teacher to direct me to where Lauren was on the play ground.  They said they would stay with my kids and that Lauren had been asking for me.  I ran around the corner and wasn't prepared for what I saw. 

 

There was a firetruck, and ambulance, a police car and about a dozen men in uniforms near the swings.  They were lifting Lauren onto a stretcher, her arm out to the side wrapped up in a brace, oxygen across her nose and an IV in her arm.  I ran to her side.  She was drugged and crying and clearly scared.  I was suddenly scared too!  I put on a brave face and tried to comfort her. 

 

The paramedics said she had flipped off the swings and had a pretty bad break.  They said they needed to take her in the ambulance to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake and wanted me to ride with them.  Lauren kept crying that her arm hurt and she was scared.  I was panicked! I couldn't leave her, but I had two babies in the car, still strapped into car seats that couldn't come in the ambulance.  I knew I could follow the ambulance there, but I couldn't leave Lauren to ride by herself. 

 

 The principal offered to watch my kids while I went with Lauren.  I had never even met her before and neither Ashlyn or Paige do well with people they don't know.  The paramedics said they needed to leave right away.  I quickly called Janelle to see how soon she could be at the school.  She said 10 minutes.  The girls were still in the car watching Dora.  I asked the principal if she would mind just staying with the kids in the car until Janelle came.  I told the girls that Janelle would be there soon and I'd be back later.  I left my car keys and my babies with the principal and hopped in the ambulance with Lauren. 

It was a long ride to the hospital.  One of the paramedics supported Lauren's arm and tried to talk to her to distract her from the pain.  They alternated between giving her pain medication and what they described as "amnesia medicine" in her IV.  The "amnesia" medicine, they said, was to help her not remember how much it hurt or being scared and to a certain extent, what was happening.  They said it helps with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.  I could tell when the pain medication would start to ware off because Lauren would start to shake and her teeth would chatter.  It was so hard to see her like that and not really be able to do anything to help her.

Lauren asked if Jason was coming and if Austin and Jessica were going to be there. Austin and Jessica were still at school, but Jason met us at the hospital.

The nurse pulled us out in the hall for a minute to explain what was going to happen.  Jason stayed with Lauren while I gave them some of our information. 

It was so much harder once we got to the hospital.  They couldn't give her any pain medication until after they were able to get X-rays in case she needed to have surgery.

They took the splint off of her arm to get the X-ray.  It was the first time I had seen her arm.  I got a little light headed and my stomach did a flip.  Oh my poor baby!  I had no idea it was so bad!!  Lauren took one look at her arm and screamed for them to cover it up!  She didn't want to see it.  They put a towel over it until right before the X-ray. 

Seeing Lauren in so much pain was too much for Jason.  He had to step out in the hall for a minute to catch his breath and regroup.  If the S shape of her arms wasn't enough, the X-rays showed that her arm was broken.   We met with a couple of doctors that explained that because of her age, she is right on the border of needing surgery.   They wanted to try to set her arm and see if they could get it to line up without having to do surgery.  They said they thought she was young enough that it would be able to heal okay if they could get a good alignment with both bones.

They put her to sleep and asked us to leave the room while they set her arm.  We sat in a little room across the hall and waited.  After about a half an hour, one of the nurses came out of Lauren's room to give us an update.  They said that Lauren was still out and couldn't feel anything.  They were having a hard time getting both of the bones to line up.  They would get one in place, but it would move when they tried to line up the other bone.  The nurse said the doctor was still working on it, but because it was taking so much longer than they thought it would, he wanted someone to give us an update.

 About 15 minutes later, the doctors came in and said they think they were able to get everything in a good place for healing to occur.  They put her arm in a temporary cast and said she would need to come back in a week to make sure nothing slipped out of place.  They would decide then if Lauren would need surgery or not.  They said that Lauren would need to be extra careful this week and do as little as possible, avoid stairs and try to basically just be still and try not move.

We went in and sat with Lauren while she was waking up.  It brought back memories of Jason waking up after his surgery.  He was so funny and super lovey!  Lauren was really silly.  It was so good to see her smile!  They let her go home that afternoon.  As we were leaving we laughed at the pile of wood chips she left behind on the floor of the hospital.  Her new sweatshirt was cut in to several strips and also covered in wood chips.  We left it in the garbage can in her room and felt grateful that she was in once piece!

We stopped at Janelle's house and picked up the little girls on our way home.  I was so grateful for Janelle and her willingness to drop everything to be there for me.  We got there just as they were leaving to take family pictures!  Getting everyone ready for family pictures can be a little stressful even without two extra little kids and she just smiled like it was no big deal!  I'm so lucky to have such an awesome sister!!

We called to see if anyone was still at the school who knew where I could find my keys.  They said they were just leaving but would wait for us to get there.  I later realized they had left two voice mails on my cell phone to check on Lauren and see if she was okay.

Lauren said she wanted to tell the big kids by herself and asked if we could go to our favorite frozen yogurt shop, Orange Leaf.  Of course, we said yes.

It was so sweet to see how concerned the kids were for Lauren.  They were so helpful all week, offering to get stuff for her and letting her control the TV.

Here is an update I posted on Facebook:

"Lauren update: She is doing pretty good as long as she has meds. She goes in little waves of being sad about the things she can't do and of being scared of having to have surgery. (We will find out on Wednesday) For the most part, she is good. She has set up camp in the recliner with a remote and is enjoying all the love and attention from family and friends. She won't let me take any pictures of her because she says her hair is crazy! Haha! So, she is well enough to care how she looks! We are going to figure out how to get her cleaned up and dressed this morning."

 

Her friends were so sweet.  I got a few messages from friends back in Clovis who said that their daughters, Lauren's friends, had prayed for Lauren during their family prayers.  It was so sweet.  Lauren's friend, Sierra, came and brought her lunch one day.  Her dad has his girlfriend come by and brought Lauren a cozy fuzzy blanket and big stuffed animal.  And she got a couple of packages in the mail from friends and her Grandpa.  This one is from our good friend's the Poulsen's.

She was always so surprised when her phone would ring with friends calling to check on her.  She felt so loved when I would read her the messages I received from my friends and family.  Her teacher called several times along with the school principal to see how she was doing.  She LOVED the attention, but was getting so tired of lounging on the couch.

 

A couple of times, she woke up at night crying because she said she just remembered what her arm looked like when it was bent the wrong way. I think we could have used the "amnesia" medicine after her X-ray!!  We were able to keep the pain bearable with her medication, but sometimes she would still just start to cry.  She was really worried about not being able to play with Paige or to hold her.  We assured her she would still be able to play with Paige, but she just had to be really careful this first week.  I thought it was so sweet that was what she was worried about.

 

A week had passed and we were ready to find out if Lauren would need surgery.  She had been really worried about it all week.  I was so glad when we woke up and saw that it was snowing!  Lauren was so excited to see everything dusted in white that she didn't even think about her appointment until we got there.

 

They took an X-ray and decided that everything looked good and she wouldn't need surgery!  When they took off the temporary cast to put on the permanent cast, her arm just drooped where it was broken!  The bones fell out of place! No one was expecting that.  They quickly tried to reset her arm and get a cast on it while Lauren's head was buried in my chest.  They didn't have any medication they could give her in the clinic and didn't want to leave it out of place and take her back to the hospital.  They did another X-ray and determined that her bones still weren't lined up.  They cut off the cast and had to set her arm again!!  Finally, they thought it was good enough, but wanted her to come back in a week again to once again make sure nothing slipped.  If anything moved she would need surgery.  And so, it was another long week.