broken arm

when ellie was born…i predicted she’d be trouble. i made this conclusion due to how crazy her pregnancy was and how different it was from olive’s. not only is she my ‘sick’ baby….always getting more sick than the rest of us but she definitely is more rambunctious than olive.

she’s energetic, a risk taker, more careless, and just overall more reckless compared to olive. now if you know olive…you know she’s super straight laced. she’s so responsible, kind, thoughtful, neat, organized, a planner, and highly sensitive. both girls are so wonderful and good but very distinct on how they handle and react to different scenarios.

so, here’s the story.

it was a beautiful day. sunny, warm and perfect for olive and ellie’s soccer games. we did our usual routine and headed to ellie’s game first, headed home and then onto to olive’s game. it was so nice out and when we arrived, we started chatting with everyone and doing our usual routine of visiting. while i was standing under the picnic cover, i hear a child screaming. rich comes walking over to me holding ellie. i see her arm and rich says she fell and dislocated it. ellie is screaming and crying! he passes her off to me and i try to calm her down. i literally started saying “oh shit, oh shit…oh shit” in my head. something was not right. at. all.

i tried walking ellie away from everyone but i was so engrossed in calming her down i didn’t venture far from the crowd. all i could remember was saying “you’ll be ok, you’ll be ok, you’ll be ok…oh my God! sweet girl, you’ll be ok” over and over, trying to convince myself that mantra as well. she was screaming and crying and it shattered my heart i couldn’t do anything to take away the pain or help her any more than i could at that moment.

as ellie was screaming and crying, she pleaded with me to get her a bandaid. my heart just dropped. i replied, “i’ll get you a bandaid! i’ll get you a bandaid!” as i knew in her mind, a bandaid made her boo boo’s feel better. i could not take it. i wanted to trade places with her to stop the pain.

our friends kim and dave were there as well, watching their daughter play, and thank goodness they were both there cause they saved us. they saved me and they helped ellie in ways i couldn’t. dave is a firefighter and kim is a nurse and their support, guidance, and calmness did wonders to a mama desperate to help her little baby.

dave miraculously had a small soft cover children’s book and bandage tape with him. i was holding ellie’s arm to support her and to stop her from moving it to cause anymore pain. kim so thoughtfully started to move us further away from everyone and dave came running over to splint her arm.

at that point, rich was already on the phone with 911 and explaining the situation when someone on the phone told him to NOT splint her arm. as he’s being told this, dave started to splint her arm and he freaked out not knowing dave knew what he was doing {rich had no idea dave is a firefighter/paramedic}.

this was the part that still haunts me…as it was hot outside and i was holding ellie’s arm…in our frantic nature, dave tried to get me to remove my hand from her arm as he cupped her arm with the book, underneath, as i tried to pull me hand away, it was stuck, sweaty, to her arm and we were literally yanking her arm back and forth trying to splint it. she s h r i e k e d in pain as we jostled her arm back and forth. the fact that i couldn’t pull my hand away from her arm more smoothly, causing her so much more intense pain literally killed me inside. i know we were helping her in the moment to make it feel better but that minute of me causing her more pain hurt me mentally and emotionally so bad. i was suppose to be helping her but instead i caused her more horrible pain.

after dave splint her arm, it calmed her down a bit more. within a minute or so {now mind you, i’m totally gauging the time from memory as i really had no idea how long anything was in my state}, the firetruck, the paramedics, ambulance, and police arrived. it was a circus. at that point, kim had walked me to the front of the park. the paramedics met with me and asked me questions and they said to me, “mom, can you hold her and walk all the way to the ambulance?” i shook my head yes and started bawling…at that point, i knew we were on our way to help her and i just started crying.

so there we were, me holding ellie and two paramedics holding ellie’s arm so gingerly, doing their best to not disturb, move, or bounce her arm to cause any pain. one step at a time, we slowly inched our way to the stretcher. all the men reached for ellie and safely placed her on the cot and strapped her in. i desperately asked them if i could ride with her in the ambulance and they said yes. i was so relieved! they gave me a mask and i climbed into the back. at that point, possibly from the adrenaline, as the truck took off, she passed out on the stretcher.

once we arrived, they pulled her into the emergency room where nurses went to work. they also gave her a stuffed animal to distract her and that was so sweet. the emergency doctor spoke with us and everyone explained everything. they needed to X-ray her arm and that was the worst part of us being there. they had to cut off the makeshift splint dave made and move her arm to get the right picture of her break. she cried but it was quick and then they re-splint it, which caused her pain again and then it was somewhat smooth sailing after that in the pain department.

once the doctor assessed her break, she told us she couldn’t treat ellie and that she needed to go to a hospital that had a specialist and a pediatric center. so they contacted lutheran and christ to see who could take her. they determined lutheran had someone who could operate on ellie. so, once we got the ok to go, they then moved her from her emergency room stretcher to another stretcher and strapped her in and literally padded her. the only thing showing was her face underneath all the white cloth. it was so oddly cute to see.

they rolled her out and into another ambulance. we rode 40 minutes to the hospital and things moved quickly there. ellie was rolled into another room where the same questions were asked over and over. it was a better environment for her, being in a pediatric center, as they had fun things for kids, like an iPad on wheels where they rolled it over to her, adjusted the screen and she got to choose a cartoon to watch. i think she chose garfield…?

the 2nd surgeon came in the let me know what was going to happen to ellie. he explained the surgery and what it entailed. he told me that overall, once they took her down to the actual surgery and for her to hit the recovery room, would be an hour total. i was like, okay, cool. no problem.

he also was super surprised at how stoic ellie was. he asked me if she was always this calm and quiet when experiencing intense pain. i was like, uhhhhh, i don’t know…she’s never been in this kind of pain, but i guess we now know? yes, for being a 4 year old, who had just broken her arm and it had been hours since it happened, she was quite calm and chill even though her arm looked like a lumpy potato.

the only thing that sucked was, when they transported us to lutheran, rich went home to grab stuff for everyone, not knowing what was going to happen and if we were going to stay at the hospital, etc. by the time he went home and was on his way back, like I said before, things were moving quickly with ellie and they were rolling her out to surgery before he could get back to see her. we were there for maybe a half hour before they decided they were ready to operate. thank goodness cause at that point, she was laying around with a broken arm for at least 4.5 hours.

they started rolling her out and i followed along. as we go closer to the surgery area, it became cold. like super cold. they took a heated blanket and covered ellie. i was so cold, i almost asked for one! LOL the head surgeon came out to say hello and chat a bit. they made me sign papers for her anesthesia and that was it. i looked over at my baby and she was so super calm but i saw tears rolling down the side of her face as she knew we were parting ways. i told ellie that she was going to be ok. they were here to fix her arm and when it was over, she would feel soooooo much better and her arm wouldn’t hurt anymore.

a nurse led me out of the surgery area and walked me to the waiting area where rich met me. we relaxed as much as we could as the clock ticked by. they rolled ellie down to the surgery area around 4:30 pm and then 5:30 pm hit. then 6:30 pm hit and i was like…what is going on?! are they resuscitating her?!! it’s been two hours since they took her.

finally at 6:45 pm, the two surgeons came into the waiting room. phew! dr. marjetko was so relaxed and personable. he treated us like we were his very first set of parents with a kid who just broke her arm. he was kind, warm and understanding. he told us that he was hoping to put together ellie’s arm without opening her up but the break was so bad, he couldn’t. so he had to make an incision and put her bones, muscles, and ligaments into place, sew her back up and put 4 pins into her arm. oh my sweet baby!

he had his 2nd surgeon call down to the recovery room to see if we could see ellie and they gave us the ok. they walked us down and we saw our precious little girl still sleeping. i was elated to know that the surgery went well and that she was no longer in severe pain. we chatted with the very nice nurses and they were explaining a few things to us about her recovery. ellie kept waking up and then falling back asleep. she probably did this 3 or 4 times and then finally she really woke up. one of the nurses ran to get a frozen pop for her and ellie immediately snatched it out of her hand and started eating it.

even there, the nurses were amazed by her stoic nature. they also commented how most children her age come out of surgery most likely screaming and crying, usually disoriented and scared. ellie woke up and was like, “what’s up mom and dad? give me another popsicle.” LOL

once they checked a few things, she got the ok to go to her room. since they did open her arm up, they made her stay overnight to make sure everything was ok. rich volunteered to stay and i went home to get olive, who was so kindly taken in by our wonderful friends jon and val.

ohhhhhh, what a day. my baby girl was better and on her way to recovery. that meant everything to me. she would have the splint/cast on for at least 4 weeks and then therapy afterwards, if needed.

so, that my friends, was the first real emergency i ever experienced and i truly hope i never go through that again. God bless ellie and everyone who sent their thoughts, prayers, and support to us and our little girl. she is so loved.