Of broken bones and such

Tuesday was a busy and hopping day.  I had to get Josh off for an overnighter with his whole soccer team at Mohican.  The team has a one night camping trip they do for team building and fun.  Of course, some may not call this a fun event.  There is a hearty amount of running involved, which is ok, but the wild card is the weather.  You see, some of the guys sleep out under the stars and if there happens to be a storm roll through, some are not so comfortable.  Toss in sleeping on the ground if you don't have an air mattress and you have a recipe for a sleepless night, along with physical exertion the next day = potentially cranky kid on the return.  Fortunately my sweet boy has finally figured out to just go lay down and nap to wear it all off!  This has only taken him 13 years to get it in his head.  He has always been afraid he was going to miss something.  Something big and special.  Like, maybe mommy and daddy were going to eat a Klondike without me!!!  And seriously!  We would NEVER do such a thing.  We're a little more sophisticated now.  We go in our bedroom and chase them out with one kiss.  The grody is ON with one kiss.  But this isn't about a kiss.  Or even the soccer team building overnighter.

I took Josh to WalMart to snag up the few things he needed for the trip and while we were there, I was multi-tasking.  I was having a very important phone conversation.  It really was.  I can say I didn't think the call would last as long as it did, but it did. 

While I was chatting away and walking around WalMart, our friends were trying to call.  Several times.  I ignored it.  Just because I have call waiting doesn't mean I have to use it all the time.  I really meant this call was important. 

Apparently so was the call that never got through.  I asked Josh to call our friends back and see what they wanted because they tried calling several times.  Zach and Chloe were at their house, but they have boys Josh's age and they were going on this same soccer extravaganza as Josh so I thought it had to do with that.  Josh called and seemed to iron out whatever was the issue.  I'm still chatting away, but coming to an end.  Josh has ZERO change in body language.  Zero comments to me like, "hey mom, you might want to hang up because we have a 23-19!!!!!"  For those of you that are not in the know, a 23-19 is from Monsters Inc.  We have been warped in our humor from Disney and Pixar.  Sorry.

So I finally hang up with my very important phone call and about two minutes later as we are strolling through WalMart heading for the checkout, Josh says very casually, "oh, Mr. E. thinks Zach broke his arm."

WHAT???  YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T SPECIFY THAT THERE WAS AN EMERGENCY AND I NEEDED TO GET OFF THE PHONE NOW!!!!

Nope.  He didn't.  So now I'm like a deer in the headlights.  I think I went in a circle a couple of times trying to figure out what to do.  Fortunately one of Josh's best buds was at WalMart too, so I purchased our goods and shoved him into their care. 

Zach had the misfortune of breaking his arm about two summers ago (2009).  Yes, I said "about" because I am foggy.  I think that was the time, but you never know.  Hey, I know when they were born DANGIT!

Since that time, Zach has been pretty leery of doing bodily harm to himself.  Not going to happen.  I mean, yea, he runs and jumps, then dives into a tuck to roll places ~ he's considering stuntman work which will never lead to broken body parts.  But he is sort of cautious and is afraid he's going to break his arm again.  Well, FEAR NOT!  He has done it again. 

This time was not as serious as the previous break.  The first one involved him with a skateboard in our driveway.  He wasn't even going fast on the concrete.  He hit a little pebble and fell forward.

*DISCLAIMER*  *PAIN AHEAD*

So when Zach fell off of the skateboard and landed, his arm kind of flipped back at the break.  He watched it happen and the screams that ensued... OH THE SCREAMS!! 

I was in the kitchen making dinner and I heard him screaming like a mad-man.  If you want the truth, I thought the rooster had attacked him and was pecking his face.  That was the first thing that went through my mind.  I did mention that we had a very naughty rooster that would wait until you turned your back and he would attack. 

So I go running out onto the deck with a few people following.  Zach is running and screaming incomprehensible words that involved skateboarding, falling, broke, saw it, scream, flipped back, broke broke broke.  He is holding his arm, which looked normal to me (not misshapen) and he came up on the deck still screaming.  At this point he was screaming so much that I actually had to yell over him to get him to stop screaming ~ parent of the year award for me!  He stopped long enough between sobs to tell me with as few words as possible that he broke his arm and he saw it happen.  So triage nurse kicked in and I shipped him off with Rodger to the E.R.  I shipped him off because at this time we were still babysitting a little guy and he was due to come in any minute.

I have NEVER sent any of my children off with Rodger to the E.R.  For Pete's sake, when the kids have a fever, asthma attack, feel sick, scared, whatever, they come to my side of the bed.  They have to pass Rodger and walk around to my side to get to me to fix the boo boo's.  So sending him off was a bit odd, to say the least. 

This time I got to take him to the E.R.  Apparently I wasn't driving fast enough.  He reminded me that Daddy drove over 90 mph to get him to the E.R. last time...  Well, I was on a highway so I bumped it up to 72 mph.  That's it, no faster.  I suppose Rodger was a bit stressed when he did it because Zach screamed and cried the whole way there.

We got to the E.R. and went through our little check in and waited to be taken care of.  I really like the small hospital we go to.  The staff is kind and caring.  They try to cheer up the kids as best they can.  If you have to go to an E.R. then this is the place to make it happen!

After the triage nurse took care of Zach we were just waiting for the x-ray to happen.  We had a t.v. to watch some quality t.v.  First it was on The Animal Planet channel and I had to change it because it was showing pictures of a little guy that had an accident and he lost his fingers.  After reconstructive surgery, a couple of his toes were placed on his hand to replace his fingers.  That show kinda made Zach a little queasy.  I wonder why?

The x-ray tech came to whisk Zach away and he had the golden picture of his wounded arm in about 6 minutes.  When our stellar doctor came to get us and show us the x-ray of the broken area, I had a moment of "here we go". 

Grateful is the word of the day.  Zach only had a slight fracture, called a "buckle fracture".  It is a ripple through the bone and should heal up very nicely in about three to four weeks.  He'll only have his soft cast on for about three weeks and after that, just be careful with it. 

His first break two years ago was with both bones and he was prepped for surgery because they didn't know if it would set properly or not.  Thankfully that didn't happen and surgery was avoided.  We didn't even have to worry about that this time around!

Zach seems to have this gift of doing these things right before soccer season though.  He'll only miss one game if all goes well.

We aren't half as bad as our nurse's daughter.  Her daughter is in her late 20's I think, and she has broken both her arms for a grand total of eight times!  Eight arm breaks!!!  I hope Zach doesn't have any hopes to live up to or surpass that record!

So we have sent Zach off for his week with Grandpa and Grandma and hopefully I won't get any phone calls telling me that we need to come and get him...