Rite of passage

Mason broke his arm Friday. It was the first time we'd been to the ER with one of our kids. Well, that's not technically true. I tried to go one other time when Stephen was have trouble breathing due to croup. I got there and the admission nurse sardonically said, "Yeah, the wait from this point is 4 hours." I said, "But that would be 4 a.m. and I can see my regular doctor at 8 a.m. and he's having trouble breathing NOW," which was the nicest thing I could say given that I was holding my sick baby in my arms. What I was thinking was, "It's not a theme park ride, it's an ER. Help the gasping baby, you complete idiot!!!" She was not swayed by my wheezing kid or the panic in my voice. "Yeah," she said, as if to say "your summary of the situation is accurate, and now I will go back and sit by some large desk filled with papers and files, and drink my extra large coffee and forget all about you." She turned and walked away, and in so doing forced me to see the futility of the situation . . . I figured I could go home and call 911 and get some nice EMT guy to help me, so I went home and crossed my fingers. Luckily, Stephen did okay during the night and we were able to see our regular doctor in her office first thing the next morning. Needless to say, we're not big on ERs.

So, Friday night mom offers to watch the kids at Brandon and Karen's while all the parents got a date night. We had just made it to the restaurant and gotten food when I decided to call and check on the kids. I dialed the phone and said "Hi, Mom, how are the . . . " and she interruped and said "MASON JUST BROKE HIS ARM IT WAS FINE UNTIL JUST NOW BUT NOW HE'S HURT HOW SOON CAN YOU GET HERE." I told her I'd be there immediately and hung up the phone. Monte didn't even eat. We left the food sitting there and sped off toward Mason's arm. Turns out he was throwing a football around and it went over the fence, and he climbed the fence to get it, lost his balance and crack, standard split fork forearm fracture.

We took one look at the arm and realized it was broken, because arms don't bend that way otherwise. We got him to the ER, and they took one look at the arm and ushered us right in. We filled out paperwork, and got X-rays with super speed. Unfortunately, pain meds took a LOT longer. Mason was sobbing and I was standing over the nurse asking again and again when the doctor would come in and sit in our room long enough for the state legislature to be satisfied that he was being cared for by someone wth a medical degree, so the nurse could finally give him the morphine she knows plenty about, can give in her sleep and had been holding in her hand for half an hour.

We finally got the morphine right around the time we got the bad news. The orthopedic surgeon can't set the arm because Mason had had dinner. (What kid in a family with any kind of positive cash flow doesn't have dinner?) But dinner was the deal breaker because they needed to knock him out in order to set the arm and he had to have an empty stomach. They wrapped the arm up and sent us home, with oral pain medication, and instructions to come back at 7 a.m. to get checked in to have the arm set at 8 a.m. So home we went, with ORAL pain meds. Remember now dear reader, in order for him to get a cast, we can't give him anything to eat or drink after midnight. Did I mention the only way I could manage his pain was with oral medication, because it turns out that counts toward the no eating and drinking. You see where I'm headed with this? Sometime around 2 a.m. he started hurting pretty badly, and by 5 a.m. he was sobbing. I had a pill that would fix it IN MY HAND, but I couldn't give it to him. What an awesome feeling that was. By 5:30 we were back in the ER begging for someone, oh please oh please oh please ANYONE, to give him a shot in his IV (which had stayed in his arm from the night before). Again, we waited and waited for someone with an advanced degree who wasn't the nurse holding the meds, to tell us he could stop hurting.

Ever sat next to a child in pain? Your own child in pain? It does things to your brain, heart and gut that I can't even put into words, and makes you want to recreate that Shirley MacLane scene in Terms of Endearment where she screams at the nurses station for someone to just give her daughter the morphine. Yes, Shirley MacLane nailed it. She might have even been a little held back.

He got his shot, felt better and then he got his splint and eventually once the risk of swelling goes down he'll get his cast. And he will never ever ever jump off a fence to get a football again.