Friday, June 8, 2007

Range of Motion

They say bad things come in threes. I guess I’m living proof of that. Less than two weeks ago, I discovered a dead
body on the banks of our campsite. Three
days ago I became ill and made every effort possible to keep my body firmly
planted on the couch, despite my children’s many requests. My son learned a little bit about
self-sufficiency during that time. And
today my daughter fell from a swing-set fort to the ground and landed on her
back. It was about 4.5 feet high (this
is a guess) and my 33-inch tall daughter fell sideways off of the platform onto
the ground with a fairly loud thunk.





Cast
I went to the ER about 10 minutes after the fall. She seemed OK but was a little lethargic and
crying in a way that had me worried. I
called my doctor but he was at lunch and I couldn’t stand not taking her
in. I had to make sure she was OK. So, I called in a favor with Melinda to take
my son home with her if necessary (thank you Melinda!). I explained to my son what was going on and
I jumped in my car and drove the three miles to the hospital. I got to see the triage nurse relatively
quickly and she did a fairly extensive check-up on my daughter. She said that she would be happy to let a
doctor look at her but she was quite confident that my daughter was fine. By that time she was calm and smiling. I asked her what she would do if it were her
child and she said she would take her home, observe her and come back if there
was anything noticeably wrong later on. I took her advice and went back to pick up my son and hang out a little
bit with some friends.





My daughter seemed fine. She ate lunch and was a little moody but I attributed it to her being tired  and a little shell-shocked from the fall. I took the kids home and they both napped for a couple hours. When my daughter woke up she was clearly
favoring her left arm. She held her right one pretty close to her body and kept pointing at it and whimpering. It took me about three seconds to get both
kids in the car and on the way to the hospital. We got right in again with the same triage nurse and saw a doctor within fifteen minutes of arriva. My
daughter charmed the scrubs off of everyone in that hospital and managed to
coerce the nurse into snatching a popsicle for her and my son from the staff’s
freezer. She sat still for the doctor,
licking her red popsicle and grinning while the doctor pulled her arms and
legs, checked her back, neck and head and, every once in a while, looked at me
as if to say, “Why did you bring her here again?”





My daughter is fine. The range of motion in all of her appendages is normal and she walked
out of there with a new bracelet, a sticker and a popsicle. She thinks the hospital is some type of amusement
park full of friendly people and frozen treats. I walked out of there with a $300.00 bill and a post-it note
stuck on my daughter’s file that says, “Warning: Neurotic Mother.”



6 comments:

  1. Always better to be safe than sorry. I would have taken her in also again if it were my child. She was acting like it was still hurting her and I heard her crying when she got up from her nap. So glad all is well!

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  2. Glad Tatum is fine--you know, I once did NOT take my child to the doctor immediately after a fall and he had a broken leg!! Imagine the guilt I felt!! How could a mother not realize her child's leg was broken? I mean it wasn't contorted or anything, just a hairline fracture, but still I really felt like Mother of the Year when I got the diagnosis.
    Oh and regarding your quiz on the left side of this page: You have no idea (or maybe you do) of the intensity of my hatred for that whiney Caillou!!

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  3. Glad you and the lil'tikes are doing well, once, when Uncle Ben was 4, (his Birthday) he was involved in a bike wreck just minutes before we were scheduled to leave home for a trip to his Chuckie Cheese's Birthday Bash, after the clean-up process, we loaded in the family wagon, and drove 40 miles to "Chuckie's", Ben was way too quiet, and when we asked him where he was, and what he was doing there, he had no idea, back in the old wagon, 55 miles to the Hospital E.R., and x-rays, E.K.G.s, etc. end result, slight concussion, 2 days in the hospital for observation, and, all the ice cream he could eat, he turned out relatively OK, and had no long term measurable effects form the wreck, he never did remember what happened, and we still had to go to Chuckie's place when he got out of the hospital, and, yes, we did have a small guilt trip about not realizing he needed medical attention sooner, live and learn, or, not, it's still better to error on the side of caution, apparently kids are harder to replace than cats.

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  4. That's right Melinda. I HAD to go. I couldn't help it.

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  5. Jacquelyn-
    Yes. In fact I kept thinking of Patrick and his little cast. That's part of the reason I made a return trip.
    And I DO remember your hatred of Caillou. That's why I added him to the poll.

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  6. Ben is my nightmare child. I can't handle that many trips to the ER.

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