Live Life to It's Fullest

He did it! He finally broke a bone! Two in fact!
Here's how it happened.
Our neighbors, the Hogge's, were missing their dad for this past week (their dad was out of town for the week like ours was) so we decided to get together after dinner on Thursday night. We went for a bike ride and then played at the park for a little bit. We decided that we were all in need of icecream. We headed back to the Hogge's house and got everyone some icecream. Most of the kids headed out back to play. Ashlee and I stayed inside and did some visiting while the younger ones ate their icecream. After a few minutes, we couldn't hear any noise and decided all the kids must have gone out back.

I had a feeling that we needed to go out back and sit with the kids. It was only about 8:20 pm and it wasn't dark. I think I was worried about Mayci and her behavior (she's struggled not having her dad around this week). We had been out there long enough to sit down in chairs and take one bite of our icecream when we noticed Austin flying out of a swing. All the boys had been doing it. Kids love flying out of a swing to see how far away they can land from the swingset. These boys are no different than others.

The problem with Austin's jump was that his body wasn't quite ready to jump. He ended up coming down in more of a belly flop position. His first reaction was to put his arms out in front of him. His right arm took all of the impact.

He immediately grab his arm and came running towards me. As he had his arm straight up in the air and he's screaming, "It hurts. It hurts", I knew we were heading to the hospital. I turned to Ashlee and asked if she could drive Austin and I to our house to get our van. We asked Braydon to watch the other kids while we left. Ashlee was great and got ice for his arm. She calmed all of the kids and even made sure there weren't bikes in the way to run over as we pulled out.

Austin was struggling to keep it together and I kept telling myself that I needed to keep him calm and relaxed. That meant I had to stay calm and positive- no tears!!! We got him in the van and headed for the hospital. They got us in pretty quickly and he was pretty ghostly looking as I tried to keep him steady while walking in to the triage room.
He did a great job at staying calm and never threw up (even though he wanted to a few times. I told him he didn't want to throw up quite a few times, trying to convince him he felt fine!!) Once we got him all checked in, they gave him some Morphin and he started getting some good color back in him. They got some x-rays and called the on-call Orthopedic Dr. He decided that he needed to sedate Austin and set his bones. Both of the bones in his right forearm were broken.

They asked if I wanted to watch the process and I voted to stay in the room with him. I told them I'd turn my head or leave the room if I needed to. Once they got him sedated, the Dr. took hold of his arm and pulled/stretched the arm so the bones could work their way back into place. It then looked like he was trying to break a very wet stick. He bent Austin's arm one way and then the other. He did that a few times and then decided that the bones were where they needed to be. I watched the entire thing and it didn't bother me at all.

The Dr. then put a splint on Austin's arm and wrapped it up. It was only about 5 minutes after he was wrapped that Austin came back around. He was a little groggy for about 5- 10 minutes but after that he was feeling really good and carried on conversations with everyone. He was so tough. We spent another 45 minutes or so waiting to be discharged. It was about 11:45 pm when we got to leave the hospital.
It was just after midnight when we got home and we were both a little hungry. We settled on a small bowl of cereal and then we got Austin settled in for the night. It was about 1 am when I finally got to go to bed. He woke up about 3:30 saying his arm hurt and he needed some pain medicine. After that he slept until about 8:00 am. He hasn't needed much pain med today. He has handled his broken arm so well. We've laughed a few times today at him as he's tried to eat food with his left hand or tried to do up his pant button, one-handed.

We go to the dr. on Thursday and get a cast put on. He'll have the cast on for about 6 weeks. Austin is bummed that he won't get to finish out the baseball season. He won't get to swim until August. Fishing next week ought to be interesting as well. It will be an interesting summer.

I am so grateful that things turned out the way that they did. It could have been worse- bones sticking out of the skin, blood, two broken arms. The whole night turned out just fine, considering. I texted a picture to Justin of Austin's arm and he was pretty grossed out with it. It's probably a good thing that he wasn't here. I would have sent him to handle everything and he probably would have passed out!! Things worked out great! My kids all got taken care of and put into bed. Braydon did a great job handling things at home and making sure the girls got to sleep.

What fun is life if you don't take a trip or two to the hospital with kids? This wasn't my first and it won't be my last. I just feel bad for Austin. It's hard being a mom and it's hard to see my kids suffer. It's also fun to know that my kids are healthy and aren't afraid to have fun and live life to the fullest!!