Broken Arm

It was a wonderful Friday afternoon. The kids only had a half day of school, so I picked up some lunch for them and we met friends at the park. The weather was beautiful and we had a 3 day weekend ahead of us. Happiness.

Just as we were getting ready to leave the park and I was throwing away the last of the trash; screams.

My heart stopped.

It was Alayna and she is VERY tough and I knew from the sounds of her cries that something was VERY wrong. I asked her to tell me where it hurt and she instantly said "I broke my arm!".

If you know me, I am not very good with trauma. The other mom's there tried to calm us both down and determine if it was really that serious. We asked her to move her arm and she was able to do that. So I decided to put them in the car and head home first. Several times in the car she screamed in pain and it is only a 2 minute ride home! We got home and she ran to her bed and laid down in pain. I knew at this point that if she was still crying about it something was definitely very wrong. I called Ryan and told him he needed to come home and take her to the ER. He came home as fast as he could and took her. The ER is only across the street so they just walked over. The blessings of living on a small base.

After a little while he called me and told me I needed to bring her a new shirt and that it was a "probable broken elbow". They splinted her arm and told us to come back after the long weekend and they would have the Ortho look at it to determine if it was in fact broken.

Once it was splinted she was doing much better and was happy and wanting to play. Relief. And ice cream for the brave girl!


Well. I wish the story ended there, but oh it does not. Ryan's phone rang later that evening and it was one of our friends who also happens to be the Doctor in charge of the Emergency Room here. His wife had seen on facebook that Alayna had been in the ER earlier that day so he went in, on his off day, to look at the x-rays. We are so very glad he did! He looked at them along with another Doc that had lots of experience reading x-rays and they both determined that it was in fact broken and not just that.....but was going to require surgery preferably within 24 hours of the accident!

He was amazing! He coordinated with the Army hospital up in Seoul and arranged the surgery for the next day as well as spoke to his wife and offered to keep Calvin for the day so we wouldn't have to bring him with us. We are so blessed to have this family in our life!

So the next morning at 0600 we were on the road to Seoul. Alayna was not doing so well now. She was in pain and the pain meds were making her sick to the stomach. Then when we got there she of course needed an IV and they needed to remove the splint and re x-ray her arm. Not good. Poor baby.

After surgery the staff was wonderful and she pretty much got whatever she asked for.

Unfortunately the anesthesia made her sick. And sick for a couple days.

Poor girl was not herself for quite a while.

We made it home from Seoul that day right around dinner time. When we came home dinner was cooking in our oven, dessert was in the fridge, another friend had picked up some gatorade for Alayna and that was also in the fridge. And Calvin was brought home shortly after we arrived. We are truly blessed to be surrounded by such amazing friends to do all of that for us.