Snips & Snails AND Broken Bones

'Member yesterday when I was talking about how much fun and craziness it is having boys? Heh, heh.

Paul, 'mmmember when you said I was a rilly good mom and all that?

So, last weekend after my surgery, after Stan left for a four day canoe trip in Indiana (it was my fault, I forgot the date and scheduled my surgery for the day he was leaving...the boys took excellent care of me and it was good for me to lay back and watch that ;) Anyway, Sean came home from the neighbor's house with a lump on his head from flying out the unzipped net of their trampoline onto the concrete slab below it. Tends to draw lumps. At that time, single-parenting it and limping around, I announced: No more trampoline this week - I don't want to go to the hospital. But yesterday, things had settled down. Stan was home from his trip. My knee is coming along wonderfully - I even pulled the butterfly bandages off two of the incisions, things were feeling back to normal.

(This is when the word NORMAL echos deeply and strangely)

Sean's friend's mom called and asked if Sean and Luke were allowed back on the trampoline. I had a bad feeling. I didn't want to seem like a crazy protective mother. I had had an exhausting week. I was weak. I said, "Sssuure."


Some time later I heard terrible screams. I didn't recognize the screams as my child's screams because we don't torture our children. I wandered toward their house, then heard no screams, they had gone inside, I went back. A few minutes later I saw the mom carrying Sean home. He was crying hard. I stood still. Luke ran ahead and met me in the yard. He said, "Sean fell trying to get out of the trampoline. His arm doesn't look right."

This is when the pit of the stomach starts to do unrecognizable things and your rational brain grabs you by the quivering cheeks and yells: LISTEN! GET IT TOGETHER. THERE ARE THINGS YOU NEED TO DO RIGHT NOW, SO STAND UP, SHUT UP AND DO THEM. And amazingly, you actually shut up, stand up, and do them as natural as flipping burgers on the grill on Memorial Day afternoon.


Krissy approached saying, "I told Luke that I'd bring Sean home and ask you if his arm normally looks like this," and she pulled a giant bag of ice from his arm. Now, I don't know about your kids, but mine do not have a joint in the middle of their forearms. Luckily, my rational brain had me tightly by the cheeks or else I'd have run screaming to my couch and stuck my head in it. I put the ice back carefully, looked Krissy in her panicking frantic eyes and calmly said, "No. It's broken." I've never seen a broken bone before in my life except for videos of children having skateboard accidents. This arm looked a lot like those awful scenes and it was attached to my perfect child! =O


Then the phone calls to Stan, who was on his way home and my sister, who would take Luke and Seth at guitar lessons and lots of reassuring to Sean who was in terrible pain for the first time in his little life. My sister handed Sean a paper bag full of goodies when we dropped off Luke. Boy, was that a special thing for him and his hospital visit.

In the hospital he asked me, "Mommy? What would you do if you were in the hospital with a broken arm?" I told him that I'd try to be patient and wait for the good doctors and nurses to help me. He asked, "Mommy? Would you rather be a fire truck or an x-ray?" I said fire truck because they're red and make a lot of noise. I asked what he would like to be. He say an x-ray because they show people other people's bodies. The doctors were great - a pediatrician, an MD and an orthopedic intern. The process was pleasant, except for the iv lady who fished around for an available vein for a while. But Sean's eyes, bursting with silent tears, stared at me and he got through it. She promised him a popsicle, but never brought one. Evil nurse! Didn't she know this was our perfect child??!?!?!? Naturally, today both his father and I went out at different times and bought him beaucoup popsicles. Our freezers are overflowing. The child has popsicles! He may have a joint in the middle of his forearm, but he also has 34 popsicles!!!




And I'm coming down from my 18 hour adrenaline spike.

Comments

Cliff said…
Thanks for the visit Jennie and the kind words.
The topic here kind of sends a chill my way. I don't know how we did it but we raised 3 kids without a broken bone. A few football injuries but nothing broken.
Hope it goes ok for the little guy.
BTW, you are a bit braver than most folks. This is demonstrated by your outward admission that you know Paul. Brave indeed. :}
Thanks for coming by my blog...What a terrible thing to have happrned...More and More I am hearing bad stories about Trampoline accidents....It's weird because I don't remember hearing that years ago...Are they making them different now or something? Well I hope your dear son recovers quickly---what 6 weeks for the cast? Poor boy! And you take good care of yourself.
My mother's name was Jennie....Such a pretty name, isn't it?
Anonymous said…
Holy cow! I really admire how your brain told you "that you have things to do and to shut up and do them." I can tell you right now that my brain would be telling me no such thing, and I'd run around in a panicked state until some thinking adult called 911. I'm good for nothing in an emergency. Thank god I'm married to a doctor.
Paul Nichols said…
You are a rilly good mommmmy. Your son went to the trouble to break his arm just so he could have one popsicle and you gave him 34!!! What a mom!

By the way, since you haven't had experience with broken bones and such--like my mom--your perfect little Sean is going to get out of chores, homework, clean-ups, obligations and music lessons like nobody's business. He's going to milk this for all it's worth--and then some. Don't ask me how I know.

Ah, the summer you'll talk about for years to come! You're still a great mom.

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