All’s Well That Ends Well

7ish – our typical Saturday morning routine, all three bambinos are crammed into our bed, watching cartoons on PBS, eating cereal bars, and drinking orange juice. We talk about how we really need a king size bed, according to K & O: “not a queen, not a jack, not an ace, not a ten card bed, but a king size bed.”

9ish – we’re eating eggs and toast and two of us are drinking big mugs of coffee.

10ish – Braydon watches the three outside on the trampoline doing their thing. Crisis hits. Meera’s right arm has been slammed down upon by Owen’s body. She’s crying in serious pain.

11ish – after Tylenol doesn’t cut it one bit, and we’ve observed our baby girl behave like we’ve never seen before (incredibly lethargic, in torturous pain, insisting on being on Mama’s lap and Mama’s lap only, holding her right arm in a sling position with her left hand, refusing to allow anyone to even look at it, turns down offers of Tinker Bell, Lion King, bottles of milk, bunny snacks, and every other of her favorites in all of life…) we make the decision to go to the ER.

11:30ish – the nurse tells us it is presenting as a “Classic Broken Arm” (apparently the way Meera is “guarding it” is the telltale sign to all ER nurses of a child arm fracture). I think I might die right there on the spot, just thinking of it: my baby girl, age 2, sweetest thing on the entire planet, with a broken arm?????…   X-rays are ordered.

noon – X-rays are taken while Meera cries on the x-ray table “Mama, mama, mama” and I beg the x-ray technicians to “please hurry!” with tears streaming down my face.

12:30 – the nurses, x-ray techs, and doctors have all read the x-rays. Much to their shock it appears there is no break. They can’t explain it because they all would have sworn it was broken by the way Meera was presenting. We’re given orders to continue with Tylenol and follow up on Monday if she’s still “guarding it.” I cry tears of relief and thank God for sparing us with this close call.

1:00 – we’re discharged. We walk out relieved beyond belief. Hunger hits (in a big way; all that adrenaline has left us famished).

1:15 – we’re at the Burger King drive through. A first for the bambinos (they’ve never had Burger King). Meera sees a picture of an ice cream cone and says, “I want that one!” (some of her first spoken words since the crisis began). Absolutely, she can have whatever she wants. She loves the ice cream. We all love it all… the milkshakes, the french fries, the chicken nuggets, the whoppers… I don’t think Burger King has ever tasted so good.

1:45 – we’re home with boys playing football in the yard outside and girls napping in Mommy and Papi’s bed.

4:00 – Meera wakes from her nap in a terrible crying fit. She cries hard for about 30 minutes straight while we all try hard to console her. There is no consoling her. I’m certain it is not physical pain, but just the fear, anxiety, and stress of it all releasing itself to the four people who love her most in all the world. We absorb it for her and then we all watch Tinker Belle.

5:45 – Meera announces she wants to go outside….  as soon as we’re outside she declares: “I want trampoline.” What????? And sure enough she gets on there and starts jumping with her brothers. Braydon watches the three outside on the trampoline doing their thing… only now it is “their thing” with just a tad bit more care. They come in for dinner with Meera in good spirits and back to her regular old self.

…Dinner and baths and books and bed…

8:15 – The bambinos are all in bed. Braydon and I are done/shot/finished/fried/frazzled. We missed a birthday party today, we missed a fun-loving-fancy-free-R&R-Saturday. Instead we all learned some big lessons. Luckily…

all’s well that ends well.