Rylynn's Ordeal

Wednesday morning was busy as usual.  Kids rushing to get their chores done so we could get to the park in time for play group and me busy cheering them on and doing my own chores.  When we got our picnic, swim clothes for the splash pad, and school stuff for Rylynn together we headed for the park to play.  It was a beautiful day and the kids were having a great time on the playground.  They were dissappointed that the splash pad hadn't been turned on but other than that they were happy to be out in the sun.  Rylynn spent most of the time walking around after Beckett and going down the slide with him so I sort of stopped worrying about her.  Carter however, along with some other kids, was climbing up the outside top of the tube slide and I had to tell him to get off and go down the regular way.  After he stopped I focused on visiting with my friends.  So I didn't notice when Rylynn decided to climb over the top of the tube slide and try to climb down the outside.  I turned just in time to see her fall flat on her face with her left arm underneath her chest and I could tell it was a HARD fall.  I watched her to see if she was going to get up and then she started pushing herself up so I thought maybe it hadn't been so bad of a fall after all.  But as she started running to me my worst fears were confirmed instantly.  There was no question.  The top of her arm looked like a lopsided ball and from her elbow down her arm was flopping lifelessly from side to side. I immediately panicked and sprang into action holding her arm up trying to comfort her and telling her we needed to go to the hospital.  I am so thankful this happened during play group as I instantly had an army of mothers to help me as I panicked.  One friend grabbed Beckett, another took Carter, and several walked us to the van.  My friend Rachel, whose son has broken his arm three times this year, offered to drive so I could sit with Rylynn and helped me to figure out where I was going and calm down a bit.

After I got Rylynn in her seat with a towel under her arm I headed for the hospital and immediately called Garrett to tell him what was happening.  So of course I got pulled over for talking on my cell phone(first time this has ever happened to me since moving here!)  While bawling I apologized to the cop for talking on my phone and told him that my daughter had just broken her arm.  He took one look at Rylynn and asked me if I was okay to drive then said good luck and sent us on our way.  I called my friend Jessica to ask if she had seen Rylynn's arm because her son had broken his arm this year and from the way she described it to me I thought it looked just like Rylynn's and I knew he had to have surgery.  She said she thought it did so I prepared for the worst.  Garrett met us at the hospital where they took us back immediately.  After a quick examination by a PA they put an IV in and started Morphine.  Rylynn got really scared about the needle but she looked away and was really brave and after a few minutes she had calmed down a lot.  Then they brought the x-ray to her and took two quick shots.  It was clear that no one in the ER had any question that this was a really bad break.  Soon after the x-rays, the orthopedic surgeon who, we know and who is one of the best around here, came to talk to us about the break.  The x-ray was sick and seriously looked fake.  The top of her arm was sticking to the left and then from the top of her elbow it poked up and then down to the right.  Basically from the outside her arm looked like an S. From the top down.

He said it was a bad break just above the elbow where the bone narrows and said it definitely needed surgery and pins.  He promised to get her in as soon as possible and said that the main concern was that her nerves and blood vessels were being stretched and pulled between the bones so there might be nerve damage.  He reassured us that it would still grow normally and that apart from a slight angling of her arm when she held her forearms up to the sky it wouldn't be noticeable damage.

After that we got admitted and they started giving more and more morphin until Rylynn basically slept through the rest of the afternoon.  At this point I called and texted my family and friends and asked them to pray for our sweet brave little girl.  I am so thankful that I can call on so many people at a moments notice and know that they will be praying with faith on my daughter's behalf.  They transfered us to family care and Rylynn was really scared about the bed transfer but after that she calmed down again and slept some more.  I was so amazed at how focused and quiet she was through the whole thing.  Nurses and doctors kept saying that they couldn't believe that she wasn't crying and screaming(especially in the ER).  She reminded me of myself during child birth.  I am not a screamer.  I just close my eyes and focus and I'm pretty much silent.  That's exactly how she was.  She would be perfectly still and then anytime anyone came into the room she would open her eyes and very firmly say, "Don't touch my arm!" and then close her eyes again.  So at this point they told me it would be about 2-3 hours of waiting till they could get us up to the OR.  Rylynn luckily slept but I couldn't calm down as I kept looking at her arm and worrying about her nerves stretching and what might happen during surgery.  I was so emotionally exhausted and I hadn't eaten all day and almost past out when we were looking at the x-ray so thankfully Garrett got me some food to eat before he left to check on the boys.  So I ate and updated lots of people on the situation and tried to stay calm.  The nurse said she thought we would go up around 3:30.  So when she came in at 3:20 I was feeling relieved that it was finally time, but she said it wouldn't be till almost 5:30.  I was so frusterated that Rylynn had to just sit like that while her nerves were probably being damaged and wait!!  I said a prayer and the nurse came running back in to say that they moved some things around and that we were going up right then.

Once we were up in the pre-op we had to wait a little over an hour and then she went back at 4:45pm.  Before heading back the Dr told me that they would most likely be able to manipulate the arm from the outside, set it in place, and then put pins through from the outside and then cast the arm, but if he couldn't then he might have to cut in and put it back together.  Everyone made it sound like that was unlikely though so I wasn't too worried.  She was really calm and brave when they wheeled her back and then I went to wait in the waiting room.  I of course hadn't left her side since 11:30 when we arrived at the hospital so it had been a long time since I used the bathroom:)  I figured I would be safe to go since she was in surgery so I hurried and went but when I opened the door the DR was there looking rushed and said it's worse than I thought and I have to open her up.  I was panicked and asked if it was really bad and he replied, "yes, it's really bad." and then ran back to the OR.  This was twenty minutes into the operation and then from that point I still had to wait another hour and twenty minutes!!  It was only supposed to take 45 mins so I started freaking out really bad.  Garrett was home with the boys so I was all alone and I just kept thinking of the worst possible outcomes.  I seriously thought no one was coming to talk to me because something terrible had happened.  There were two nice ladies in the waiting room with me who could tell how upset I was and they were trying to calm me down and reassure me that she would be fine.  Then the DR finally came out and the first thing he said to me was, "how high did she fall from? it looks like she fell off of a roof rather than a slide!"  He said it was the worst break he had ever seen in a kid and that it was an orthoepedic surgeons worst nightmare because the ends of the bones where the break occured were crushed and there were fragments of bone all around the break.  Also the protective skin of the muscle had buttonholed through the fracture which made it impossible for him to set from the outside.  So after he opened her up he removed the pieces of bone and set the bone and put the pins in but he said it was still really really precarious because the bones around the break were crushed.  He said she would probably be okay though and that because of the massive amounts of swelling she was in a soft cast for the time being.

After he left I looked at the two ladies and they were like oh well no wonder you were so worried!  Then I had to wait for another hour almost until they took me back to recovery.  She looked so white and her arm was huge.  As I stood next to the bed and talked to the nurse about pain medications I began to black out again.  She ran and got me a chair and apple juice and a wet washcloth.  Seriously I felt like such a moron!  So after I could stand again they took us back to family care.  By then it was about 8pm and I again hadn't eaten in hours so the nurse kindly got me some food while Rylynn ate a popsicle but she was still pretty out of it and kept falling asleep while eating.  A little later Garrett and Carter came to visit.  Carter was really upset and worried about Rylynn when he saw her.  We had a little family prayer which he said and he was crying while he said it.  I think it just rocked his world to see his brave, strong big sister so weak and so hurt.  She kept telling him she would be okay and to not worry.  It was really sweet.  After they left I tried to get to sleep while she was sleeping but everytime I closed my eyes I saw her lifeless arm swining side to side when she first ran toward me at the park.  I could not stop picturing it!  Finally I fell asleep about midnight.

Around 1:30 Rylynn got up and had some medicine and then she was wide awake and wanted to tell me all about the accident.  I still wasn't completely clear on where she had fallen from so she told me that she had climbed over the entrance to the slide at the top and was trying to slide down the outside of the tube but she didn't remember that there were seams along the top every foot where the tube connected together so when she hit the first seam she lost her balance and fell to the ground from about 10-12 feet up.  That made a lot more sense to me since I was thinking it was 6 feet max from where she had fallen and from what the Dr had said it didn't make sense.  It was hilarious though because when she was telling me what happened she said, "Mom I really thought I could land it!"  I had to laugh at that.  Then she said she felt bad because she hit a boy when she fell and she didn't get to tell him that she was sorry. The other thing that she told me was that she had said a prayer when she got in the car and prayed that her arm would be okay and she said she felt much better after that and she knew she would be okay.  She also said that she remembered that Payton's mom was really nice and helped us a lot.  It was actually really cute to hear her talk about it.  After a while she fell back asleep but we were basically up every couple hours the whole night and she was up at 6am.  I got to sleep in the horribly uncomfortable bed/chair thing that they have in the hospital rooms for guests so needless to say I was completely exhausted.  The Dr came in that morning and told Rylynn that her break was the worst he had seen and that she had to be sooo careful so that it would heal correctly.  He said we could go home but that Rylynn shouldn't go to school for a week and that he would consider putting a hard cast on after the ten day follow up appt but that she might not ever get one because of her incision and pins and how hard it is to get hard casts off in case there were any problems.

So we are home now and Rylynn has been showered with presents and visits from friends and calls and messages from family.  We have felt so much love and support during this whole experience and I am so thankful for neighbors and friends and family who are so willing to help us.  So far she is doing well but I can tell this is going to be a tough recovery.  I am really nervous about the fact that she might have to have a soft cast the entire time because I just worry she will reinjure it.  I have to admit this was way more traumatic and stressful for us than I ever expected a broken bone would be.  It is so hard to see someone you love so much suffer so much.  I felt so helpless and so afraid for her the whole time, but at the same time I felt so thankful that she hadn't fallen on her neck or head or something.  It could have been so much worse and we were clearly watched over and protected!  So those are the details.  Hopefully we won't have anymore details to come and her recovery will be very uneventful!