Since all of the neighbor kids are on winter break, Brooke has had a hard time concentrating on her math. Today, her friend, Rilynn came over and begged me to let Brooke do her math later. I agreed; but later, I got a phone call from Brooke asking me to come and pick her up. She had left on her bike, so I knew something was wrong. The last time that happened, her little Pakistani friend broke her wrist by crashing the bike into a pole! So, I asked if she had crashed her bike, and she said she hadn't. When I got to Rilynn's house, her mom had ice on both of Brooke's wrists and said that I might want to have them looked at. They hope she can still come to their Christmas party tomorrow night!
It turns out that Brooke was swinging from a rope in a tree. She took a running leap to catch the rope, and the ground drops down a hill as she swings on the rope, but since the sprinklers had just been on, the rope was wet and slippery, and she slipped off the rope and fell all the way to the ground, landing on both hands. She knew what it felt like to be with someone who has hurt themselves, so she tried to be strong and rode her bike to Rilynn's house before crying. She said her wrists hurt so much that she couldn't use her bike brakes.
I've only been the emergency room once before with a child -- and it was with Brooke. I took her to the emergency room (again) on camp here and they x-rayed her right wrist. I figured her left wrist was okay, because it didn't hurt her as much, but I insisted that they x-ray both wrists to make sure, and sure enough, she had to have a cast put on both wrists!
Our nurse, Rabih, said this was the first time he has had to put two casts on the same person! The doctor (I think he was a doctor) that explained everything to me, was Indian, so I had a difficult time understanding everything that he told me. He said the right wrist was fractured and the left wrist was dented -- huh? I've never heard of denting a bone before. But he also said that he wasn't sure if the right wrist needed a cast because of something about the growth plate near the fracture. But then he spoke with someone else who told him that she definitely needed a cast on both wrists.
So, here she is with Rabih in the Cast Room. He gave her a little pain medication, and then got to work on her.
Bruce was able to stop by after work at 4:00. Everything is very closely located. It took me ten minutes to drive here from our house, and Bruce walked here from work.
Brooke started worrying about all the things she wasn't going to be able to do, but she was glad that her elbows were not in the casts. At least she can still feed herself. And most importantly, she can still open presents on Christmas!
They only gave her one sling because they didn't know what to do when you have both arms in a cast! They told her to alternate the sling so that each arm has a break from carrying the weight.
We're going to fly to the states in a few days, and now she's going to have her two casts on the entire time that she's there.
When she got home that evening, Reese was worried, and very relieved that she was okay. Here are her sisters signing a cast.
Brooke was disappointed that the casts weren't colored, so she colored one with a sharpie.
I bet you can guess how much of her math lesson she finished -- none! Oh well, I guess that's one of the joys of homeschooling.
- Pattie -
