One Sunday night, early in June, after Daniel and I had put all the kids to bed, we went outside and sat out on the deck to read our scriptures together. It was a lovely summery evening, so peaceful outside. We were part way through our study together, when Brooke came tearing up the basement stairs, yelling for us and shouting that Camille fell off the top bed of the bunk bed.
We rushed downstairs to find Camille curled up
on the floor, sobbing. And the story came out: She had been trying to do a head stand on the top bunk and had fallen off of it to the floor. She was crying and complaining about her back and wrist hurting. My immediate thought was that her wrist was probably broken, though Daniel said it was probably fine. We told her to go to bed and try to get some sleep.
The next morning, she we lying around the couch, babying her wrist and complaining that it still hurt and hurt all night, making it difficult to sleep. I thought again, "I bet her arm is broken." And I decided to act on the instinct (or intuition or whisperings of the Holy Ghost). I called the pediatricians office and made an appointment for her to be seen for her wrist.
The doctor said she was afraid Camille might have a buckle fracture and told us to go get an x-ray of her arm. We waited all day to hear back about the results, and finally, at about 4 or 5 in the afternoon, we heard from the doctor office. She did indeed have a buckle fracture in her wrist, and they instructed us to wait a few days before going in to get it casted, so that the swelling in her wrist would go down.
A buckle fracture happens usually when a kid catches their fall with an arm or leg, and the bone compresses, like when someone crushes a can. So it wasn't a clean break through the bone, it was just a crushing of the bone.
We went in on Friday after it happened to get it casted, and the guy casting her told me that it would've healed on its own, but that the casting would make sure that her normal activity didn't exacerbate the break. It was assist in the healing.
Camille wanted a green cast, but couldn't decide if she wanted bright green or dark green. She ended up deciding for bright green, and the casting guy put a dark green stripe on it because Camille had a hard time deciding. They gave us instructions about not getting it wet and told us to come back in 3 weeks.
She was not thrilled with having to get a cast on her arm; no swimming, no gymnastics, no hard playing. She complained quite a lot for those 3 weeks, one of which was the Holbrook family reunion, where much swimming happens. We did get her a special cast bag for swimming and bathing, but it didn't completely keep it dry. So she was required to take her swimming play down a notch. And she hated that.
We went in exactly 3 weeks later to get her cast off, just in time for our 4th of July weekend in Idaho. She was so happy to get it off.
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| She didn't want anyone to sign her cast. She liked the pure look. But the day that she was getting her cast off, she let each of us sign it. |
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