So we left Hershey Park and headed home, happily tired. There was some napping (and some whining!) in the car. We enjoyed a yummy dinner at Memaw and Pop-Pop's and decided to end the evening with a little walk. About three blocks from their house is a fairly new playground. We headed there to let the kids run off some energy. What happened next was a chain-reaction train wreck.
Tater, Bruiser, Sassy, and another little girl were playing hide-and-seek with rather limited hiding places. Before we knew it, Bruiser was out of sight! After a few panicked moments of trying to find him, we discovered he had headed over to some rocks to "hide". Daddy sat him down to talk to him and Sassy decided to remove her shoes. Daddy tackled her and made her put her shoes on while Tater headed to the monkey bars. Those darn monkey bars!
Before Daddy could reach her, Tater's grasp gave out and she fell around eight feet onto the limited mulch, putting her arms out to brace herself. We heard her scream and Daddy ran to her. As he picked her up, I could see that her arm was badly injured. Without being too graphic, picture the back of her elbow turned around to the front of her arm and just hanging. Yeah. One guess where we were heading!
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After a bit of debate about whether to run home carrying her or to leave her with me and run for the car, Daddy decided to run for the car...after his poor mother had already started to run for it! Daddy quickly overtook her and politely told her to stop running. I sat on the ground with a very sad Tater who was most worried about it being her writing hand!
Daddy arrived and we loaded her in. As we were about to pull away, Uncle J ran up with the sacred Mama Lovie...I guess I had called and left a desperate message for anyone at the house to bring Mama Lovie and Uncle J and family had just arrived to hear it!
Daddy dropped us at the door of the local hospital and I took Kate in to the ER. The nurse at the front desk said, "I'm not going to lie to you but it's going to be a long night." - and she spoke the absolute truth. We got checked in and taken right back to a room. She immediately got a dose of morphine and x-rays were ordered. The nurse in charge of her told us that if the x-ray confirmed what they thought the break was, it meant surgery and not many doctors perform that particular procedure. Great!
We watched the x-rays come up and knew we were in trouble. It was determined that she had a right supracondylar humerus fracture that would require immediate surgery to pin the bones. We immediately began numerous phone calls to her various doctors and specialists. We also made the decision to be transferred to Hershey Medical Center, about 45 minutes from our current location. We wanted experts that specialized in the care of children.
We were transferred by ambulance while Daddy followed us in the car. Tater was in so much pain it that I think it was the longest ride of my life! I promised anything she wanted to make her feel better! We arrived and more meds and more x-rays were ordered. They discovered two more breaks in her wrist as well as the elbow injury.
By 12:30 am it was decided that she should head into surgery within minutes and we had to say goodbye to her outside the elevator. Then we spent 2 long hours waiting in the empty waiting room for the surgeon to come and fill us in on the procedure.
Tater was fortunate enough to get the head of the pediatric orthopedics department to perform her surgery and came through it all quite well. The nurses commented on Mama Lovie who made the trip to the OR with her and how much they loved Tater's Mickey Mouse voice! She woke up well, was transferred to a room on the children's wing, and napped for a few hours with Mommy.
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Her one wish was for Papa to come to see her. He took the morning off work and traveled the entire way to Hershey with Mimi to snuggle his little girl. That was the best medicine Tater needed!
She responded well to going off the strong medicines and switching to the medicine she could go home with. By 2:00 we were discharged and heading home to Memaw and Pop-Pop's, with a follow-up scheduled for a few days later.
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The tired girl fell sound asleep in the car on the drive home!
And Mommy was close to falling asleep too!
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Enjoying sweets at Memaw and Pop-Pop's with her temporary cast on.
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The most challenging part of the entire thing was that we were on vacation...4 states away from home and the doctors we knew! I never met a braver little one than Tater! There were few tears and little complaining. She was an amazing trooper through the entire trauma!
