Broken Arm #5 (for Calissa)

Well, we had one long week! Friday night after gymnastics Travis and I decided to head out to dinner at Panera. It was later than usual because we had been looking into flying to Utah for Trav's sister's funeral, but just decided we didn't want to spend that much money. The weather had been bad all week and we were concerned about getting there. We had just sat down and had taken the first few bites of our dinner when we got a phone call from home. Parker was on the phone and said that Calissa had hurt her arm and then he handed her the phone. She was crying and said that it hurt bad and then I asked her to give the phone back to Parker. I then asked Parker how it looked and he said he didn't know, so I asked him to look at it. He then told us it looked bad. Travis went to get our food packed up and I started calling Kaiser to see if they had an appointment at 7:15 on a Friday night. (Fat chance!)

We arrived at home and got Calissa in the car (without even looking at her arm). I was still waiting to talk to an advice nurse on the phone. She answered about the time we were half way to the Walnut Creek ER. We took our chances with the ER and ended up staying for six hours! We waited in line and then the nurse that took our information took off Calissa's jacket and we got to see her arm for the first time. It was awful looking and obviously broken! Needless to say, with Calissa's crying and the severity of the break, we got in rather quickly. We moved into the triage room and once the nurse left to see how quickly they could get us a room (they were as full as they could be before diverting people to other ER's) Travis sank down on the ground. He was doing his best to not pass out! (It was pretty bad! The nurse we had in our room says she hasn't seen one that bad ever ... maybe she is new?) We had to wait about 20 minutes in a waiting room before a room was cleaned and ready to go. Of course, Calissa had to go to the bathroom and she had on her gymnastics leotard (from earlier in the day). It hurt to even move so we decided we had to cut off the shoulder strap so she could make it to the bathroom. Once we were settled in a room, I sent Travis home (after he gave her a blessing). I figured since we were driving to Utah the next day it would be better for him to get some sleep!

Here is Calissa with a brave smile for the camera as she was getting settled. Once we found America's Funniest Home Videos on the TV she was feeling better. (At least it distracted her from the pain and what was coming!)

I didn't get a great picture of her arm since it hurt too much to move it. (I tried to get a picture of the x-ray, but they forgot to give it to me before we left and it was already 2:30 in the morning. I decided to not go back, but will try to get a copy of the x-ray tomorrow and post it). Notice the bend in her arm. It looked way worse than the picture!

They needed an accurate weight for her so they could start an iv with morphine. They said that they had a scale on the bed and they could do it that way. I stood back and it said that she weighed 66 pounds! I told them that she was only 42 or 43 pounds and that wasn't right. They picked up her jacket and said that didn't weight 20 pounds. (Really?) Finally they brought in a scale and she got on (in tons of pain) and it said she was 46. Oops! Glad I was there to set them straight. That is a HUGE difference on a kid that size! We were just getting ready for the iv when they came and took her to x-ray.

After a painful set of x-rays where they saw that both bones in her forearm were broken we got ready for the ortho team and doctor to re-set the bones.
Here is Calissa with her iv, blood pressure cuff, heart rate monitor and oxygen. She was such a trooper and was loving watching AFV over and over again! (Thank goodness for that!) Also, the morphine was such a blessing! They used conscious sedation to re-set her bones. It was not fun! She screamed and they just kept giving her more medication. She was soooo emotional after it was over and cried and talked nonstop once they were done. They moved the bones back into place, but they kept slipping out again so they had to keep pressure on them until the plaster dried. After it was over while the nurse monitored her vitals for the next 1/2 hour she talked nonstop and kept crying. She cried about thinking that the activity day girls were going to give her dad a real heart-attack, she cried about her show she was watching on TV. She was really quite funny, but it was so sad! Once the nurse left and we finally got a 2nd set of x-rays I put my foot down and finally turned off the TV at 1:30 in the morning. We were discharged about 2 am and called Trav to come and get us. After stopping by the pharmacy to pick up some pain medication, we were back home a little after 2:30 am. (I was finally to sleep about 3:30). 8 am came pretty early and after packing we headed off on our way about 10:30 am.

Calissa got some much needed sleep in the car. It was probably good for her to sit still, sleep and keep her arm elevated for the whole day! Chain requirements were lifted over Donner about an hour before we got there. There was still snow and quite a bit of traffic, but we made it. Once we hit Reno it was smooth sailing until we hit a couple of blizzards on either side of Elko! We arrived in Bountiful about 10 PM or so local time in the middle of another blizzard. Luckily the snow plow had just gone around or we wouldn't have made it up to Travis' parent's house. Needless to say, we were exhausted, but happy to be safe in Utah with family!