So my day went Monday.
My twins first day of preschool: I drop them off. I give them kisses. I tell them to be good, to be kind, to be patient. I should've told them to be careful. Silly me.
My day was forging forward. Strong. Purposeful. Meaningful.
I'm talking at lunch with a colleague about life and kids. I see the preschool is calling my cell phone. I answer.
"Hi Jamie, K fell off the monkey bars and there is something visibly wrong with her wrist."
"Wait. What???"
"She fell. Her wrist...something is not right. You need to take her to the doctor."
Sideways. I wasn't prepared for this. At all. I can't say I'm all that surprised, but I'm not prepared.
I'm not surprised because it's K. I have written no fewer than three posts about her antics and the results of these antics. Jesus uses K to teach me. A lot.
So my colleague graciously, kindly volunteers to cover my last class. I call the doctor and get an appointment. I sprint out of school.
I pick her up and yes, something is not right with her wrist. As in there is a bend in her arm that would indicate that something is not right.
And it goes sideways. My day. Straight into sideways.
Off we go to the doctor. He knows us well because I am bringing him my expensive child, again. She operates at Mach 9 all the time and when one operates at Mach 9 all the time and doesn't wear body armor, hard things are just bound to happen.
Dr. W is a nice guy. He looks at her wrist. Confirms it's not right and sends us off to x-ray where the tech also confirms it's not right.
So since where we are can't cast her arm and since the kind of break she has dictates a sedative to set it, we head to the ER.
My sideways day just went sideways.
The ER people navigate us through hallways into our room. K jumps on the bed and situates herself. The Doc comes is and gives us the rundown. Broken radius. Sedative. Precautions with the sedative. Side effects with the sedative. What happens after the sedative.
The Nurse comes in. He's a walking miracle. You'll see why I think this.
He explains to K that he has to put an IV in her wee, little hand for the medicine. I lean close on the other side so I can distract her. He smoothly slides that needle in and she starts to cry and then she's done because he's already putting a bandage on her hand. My only complaint is that this man was not my nurse, putting in my IV, when I was pregnant with the twins and in the hospital on three separate occasions. But I am so grateful he is K's nurse.
The Nurse then proceeds to hook my baby up to every monitor known to man. She's got an IV, 3 sticky things on her chest measuring a variety of bodily functions, a canula, a blood pressure cuff, a fancy band aid thing on her index finger measuring her CO2, the crash cart in the hallway, and the IV in her hand. I am freaking out a little on the inside. And I quietly tell him so. And his response, "You can't get any safer than this." Oh, well then I'll just stop my freak out. And save it for later.
It's hard to believe the miracles that our bodies are. What they can do. What they can withstand. What can be measured and how. I'm speechless, really, when I stop and dwell on how God has made us. Our bones break. And He provided for that by allowing them to grow back together. We get sick. He provided for that by allowing our bodies to have immune systems that battle the bad cells and conquer them. We may lose a limb or a sense. He has provided for that by allowing the parts that are well to compensate, grow stronger, and be more adept so we miss the limb or the sense less. And God knows each of us intimately. Our bodies, our hearts, our strengths, our weaknesses. And He doesn't just know our physicality, that knowing also translates to our spirituality. That kind of knowing requires, even demands, a fathomless kind of loving. And this is but a fraction of how deep His love is for us.
But I digress.
The Doc comes back. She has several friends with her to make sure all is safe and precautions are in place. There's a nurse with her who has a daughter who broke her arm just like K. And she's been in my shoes before and she tells me this. And I want to hug her because she's honest and authentic and doesn't beat around the bush when she tells me I probably shouldn't look when the doc sets the bone because it's kinda rough. And she tells me that K's eyes will probably go funny and they might roll back in her head. And this is normal. I appreciate her wisdom and I take a deep breath.
But I start freaking out again on the inside. Because I'm notorious for what iffing a situation to death. I see the crash cart in the hallway and I know what it's for. I hear the beeps of all these monitors and I know what it means when they beep louder or faster or not at all. And I know she just has a broken arm. And I know it's a just a sedative. But what if....
I am so quick to forget my faith and allow my eyes to dictate the state of my heart.
The Doc gives her okay to the nurse who administers the sedative. There are just a few things more alarming than watching your small child go under...and not even all the way under...only part way under so her eyes don't close. It's disconcerting. And I don't watch the Doc set her arm. But I do watch the Doc and the nurses as they monitor K's vital signs. And the computer hooked to all her vitals is doing funny things and one nurse grabs K's face and kneads it a bit so she will breathe. My heart beats a bit faster. And I work really hard to keep the what ifs at bay. To trust in a Jesus bigger than my what ifs.
This goes on for a few minutes. And so I start talking to her. I am so proud of her. She is such a brave, brave little girl. And her eyes are vacant and wide and staring at nothing. And yet I know she can hear me because her sweet face turns in my direction when I tell her to breathe deep and she breathes deep.
As she traverses out of the dream she is locked in, she starts to cry. Loudly. Uncontrollably. And her cry is not at all soft. It's scratchy and high pitched and hurts my ears and pierces my heart. I move next to her so I can talk in her ear, touch her cheeks, rub her arm. Her eyes are still not focusing and I know she's lost in that scary place between awake and not awake. The medicine is trying to pull her under again and she knows she should wake up so she's fighting with herself. And she's scared. And all I can do is touch her and whisper to her and tell her I love her. Over and over and over.
Her eyes try to focus but they can't. She hears my voice and then panic overwhelms her. She cries for daddy. She cries for her sisters. And then she calms for a moment. We repeat this cycle for an hour. Until I see her eyes focus on me. And she responds when I ask her to look at me and to tell me who I am. And I smile into her big, brown eyes and she crinkles her nose and tells me she wants a hug.
In hindsight, it's almost comical. She comes out of the sedation screaming. An hour later she's laughing and joking and being silly. My girl is back. And my right-handed girl has a huge splint on her right arm and it doesn't faze her. It doesn't slow her down. She takes it in stride. In fact, on the hour drive home, in an hour well past her bedtime, on a day that was traumatic at best, this girl animatedly chit-chatted the entire way. I thought she would sleep. I was wrong.
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| K with her Grandma, who sat with me the whole time. I am so blessed. |
Sideways stretches us, makes us trust Jesus more. Sideways makes us lean more heavily on Him. Sideways causes us to need Him more. Sideways forces us to surrender our illusion of control to Jesus because as we are sliding sideways, it's clearly obvious we were never in control.
Sideways makes us see life at a new speed, in a new light. Sideways makes us appreciate flexibility and modern medicine and precautions, even if they are scary. Sideways is just a direction, a slight veer on the road to the destination we were headed.
It's just a bump. A little obstacle. A broken arm.
And at the end of the day, as long as sideways leads us all home, I'm good.
Grace Always Rises,
Jamie
How scary! Glad she's ok- hope she heals quickly!!
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