Oh, Emmalyn

So, we wished our sweet girl Happy Birthday on June 1st. We proceeded to spoil her that weekend with her first "friends" party. We invited over a handful of girls to hang out/paint a canvas, then since it was calling for storms, Em chose to go up to Merrillville to Bella Boo's Discovery Play Center. Turns out, it was a sunny and beautiful and Prophetstown would have been a fun alternative, but whatever. She already had her heart set on Bella's, so we went. And we had a GREAT time. Listening to girls chatter in the car, and sing their hearts out is beyond fun. They are adorable and sweet. Great group of girlfriends.

The following week we had signed Em up for her first gymnastics camp. She's always bending and tumbling at home, so why not take an actual class for it. Together with Addison Govert, we did just that. We should have known from the start when on the first day the girls themselves were less than impressed. By Tuesday, Heather was irritated at the organization, but I hadn't been there first hand to see it. By Thursday, when I went on my first driving day (and I had quite the crew...)

 I quickly realized Heather was right. Lack of organization. Some really good/team style girls. A cute little 6 year old (the class was strictly for 7 & up) and then Em and Addison. They did some showing off for me -- and Em was nailing her front hand springs. She really was -- even landing on her feet. And let me tell you -- if you know Emmalyn -- Grace is NOT her middle name on purpose! But here she was -- doing a great job. Landing on her feet. It was pretty fun to watch!!

See? She was doing great. It was a little chaotic to enjoy -- with Keaton and Colton not behaving and Colton and George begging to go do this, and Keaton wanting to play on that.....and then, in the midst of chaos, she fell. I saw it out of the corner of my eye. The instructor was working in another area of the gym with the little 6 year old and Em and Addison were doing their "stunts" over on the tumble track (aka...trampoline). She let our a roar, and I semi rushed over, but assumed she'd just banged something up a little bit. The instructor asked if she was tired and said she's probably just worked up. They gave her a popsicle (after documenting the accident in their log) and sent us on our way. They figured it was just sprained, since it wasn't really swelling up too bad.

By the time we got to Brookston her elbow was doubled in size, so we dropped the boys to Dad and went down to urgent care. I think in that ride south I'd talked myself into believing she had nurse maids elbow. Colton had it, and it was a quick fix. Easy peasy. Big drama for a small injury. God was surely laughing at my slew of thoughts. We arrived at IU Urgent Care at 5:05, and they told me without even checking us in, that it'd be at least 90 minutes. Um, no thanks. So we drove over to Med Express--and saw Dr. Plasick. I actually really like him and have seen him a number of times -- so felt confident in this. He inspected and of course, wanted x-rays. He said she's probably sprained or fractured something, but likely not the ulna, that's a hard one to break. So, we did x-rays.

And before we were even back to the room, he stopped us to look at them with him, and showed me the break. Ya, it was definitely the Ulna And then some. Bad enough he thought an ortho should take a look. So he shipped it over to Dr. Daluga who was on call, who promptly said -- ya, at her age and that bad of a break, probably better get down to Riley. It was now 6:30pm, and our entire night has changed in an hours time. I freaked out a bit and texted my cousin Trish to get Dr. Rod's opinion on the break. He confirmed it wasn't good, and said he's got a guy, but Riely would do fine too. In between all of this doc talk, Jason's texting me trying to figure out what to do with the boys and when he could meet me, etc. We opted for Riley and Dr. Plasick told us their ortho doc knew we were on our way. So, we met Jason at 43 Mcdonalds, dumped the boys to Gramp and Gram and Jason literally HAULED ASS to Indy. Daddy's little girl was in pain and there was no semi truck or I-5 construction gonna slow us down. We checked in to Riley Hospital for Children at 8:45pm on Thursday June 8th.

(That's me trying to be brave for my little girl, by trying to be funny. I suck at emotional stability.)

We finally got checked into the Emergency Department, and waited for the doc to come around. Of course, once he did, he wanted more x-rays, and they gave her an IV for meds.

Let me stop right here and say that I CANNOT praise the TEAM of people at Riley Children's Hospital enough. Not just the doctors and nurses -- the TEAM it takes to care for these children. To the lady who came in, and distracted Emmalyn by chatting & showing her Duck Dynasty ON DEMAND on an ipad while the nurses put in her IV line....and THEN brought her back a sweet blanket and nail polish set -- THANK YOU. You helped ease her pain and honestly --your kindness distracted us too, so THANK YOU. You put a smile on our little girls face when she was in a great state of fear. And honestly -- that's just what they do. Amazing.

So, after x-rays and the word surgery being tossed around, the on call Ortho said he'd like to sedate her and try to manually put things back into place -- to avoid surgery. His only concern was the swelling she had, and that even if this works, they might still need to do a procedure to reduce the swelling. So, they dosed her up with a strong sedative, and once we saw she was resting and "lights on, but no body home" they sent Jason and I to the waiting room to do their thing. Bless the parents who deal with this regularly -- that was the LONGEST 20 minutes of my life. I was fine at first -- she's in great hands, this isn't a big deal, but the longer she was in there -- the more I let my mind wander to "what if she reacts" "what if something goes wrong" "what if my sweet, bubbly girl doesn't wake up or has side effects"..........and then he came out for us. Thankfully, all was well and he was pretty confident in his work, but regardless -- he'd want to admit us for the night, and do a CT scan and more x-rays to see the extent of his fix. She had chosen a pink cast, though, she wanted purple. Doc told her purple was only available in the Operating room. Emergency only had green, blue or pink.

Surgery was still not off the table. And enjoyably enough -- she was hilarious coming out of the sedative -- so that lightened the mood a bit. So, we did the xrays and CT scans once she started to wake up a bit, but then checked into our room on the Stem Cell floor (no idea how we got there) about 12:30am.

We got a knock at the door about 7am from another team of ortho docs who said after reviewing things, they just want to be sure and fix it right and really think surgery and pins is a must. So they prepped her, and had her down in the surgery pre-op room by 8:30. We listened as the anesthesiologist gave us the details, and I fought tears. Yes -- it was JUST a broken arm, but hearing all those possible side effects and seeing your daughter being brave while scared to death is about enough to do any momma in. Especially someone as emotionally unstable as I am!!) They chose to go to sleep to the nurses dancing to Shake it Off by Taylor Swift and that put a smile on Em's face. We kissed her and sent her off to the OR, and us to the waiting room for about 2 hours.

Once in the waiting room, we realized our struggle is SO SMALL. As if being put on the stem cell unit wasn't enough of a reminder -- there was a group of 6-8 people wearing shirts that had a boys name on them, and "Half the heart, twice the battle". God has a way of keeping life in perspective. While we were nervous and scared for our little girl, our battle is small compared to that of this family and so many more in this hospital. Grandma Mandy to the rescue as we got called back to meet with the doc post opp, she arrived with fresh clothes, phone chargers and hugs! Dr. Myung reported that everything went very smoothly and that Em's break was a pretty traumatic one, but that she hopes by putting in the pins & wires they will have corrected the ulna/olecranon break, and that by casting her (new cast) palm up, they can adjust properly the radial dislocation. We just shook our heads and said okay.

Em handled the anesthesia beautifully....and was happy to see she'd finally gotten a purple cast!

We went back up to the room to get settled back in, and not long after, a couple of packages arrived and her eyes lit up. We are so blessed to be loved by so many great people, and boy did you all spoil her!! Addison sent a stuffed pig & balloon and Pammy sent a workbook, putty and balloon. Em was thrilled. Almost as thrilled as she was to eat lunch....or, have her dad help her eat lunch! :)

We had initially been told we would go home that evening, but as the day went on, Em's swelling was just not going down. The docs would again round, and again warn us that she probably should stop eating so that just in case they have to do another procedure to stop the swelling, she could be ready for more anesthesia.  This did NOT fly with our little girl (or her hungry Mom and Dad who would also now be waiting for supper!) They started trying to "fix" the situation by cutting her cast. (You can see above, the pink cast was initially cut down the middle to allow for flexing when her arms/hand would swell and retract. Because she lost a lot of the swelling during surgery, they did a normal cast, but ultimately, decided she needed the room to expand).

They also wanted her hand to be held up above her heart for awhile, so they rigged up a contraction like this for her to sleep in...

She was less than thrilled about this option, but ultimately, slept very well. Because of all the swelling issues, about 3pm they told us we'd be spending another night so they could keep an eye on her. This meant we would be missing Colton's game back home and of course, set off another round of emotions -- both in Indianapolis and in Brookston. But -- thanks for Grandma & Grandpa and some great friends -- we were able to still make over him and distract him with a friend overnight and alls well that ends well. We did say no homeruns -- but he had a heck of a game since we weren't there! :) Well, we weren't there physically, but thanks to Game Changer -- we were there!

Finally, the ortho team rounded again about 9:30, and gave us the go ahead that the swelling looked better and she could eat. WOO HOO! Daddy had run out to get Moe's for us, so we were happy campers!

On Saturday morning, things moved pretty quickly. Doctors rounded early and gave us great news -- We got to go home!!! Em was so excited to get back to normal.

 So here we are -- enjoying summer with a cast and recovering from surgery. She's done great -- she really has. We're already 2 1/2 weeks into the first 4 weeks in a cast, and we will be at her July 5th follow up before we know it. She's finding it's slowing her down some, and she's SUPER bummed about not swimming with her brothers....but she's not lost that smile or the light in her eyes, and we just keep talking about the FAIR and VACATION where she will hopefully be cast free!

  We are so thankful to all of our "FRAMILY" who has checked on us, reached out to us, prayed for our sweet girl and helped with our boys. Our battle was SMALL in the grand scheme of things, but we are thankful that this chapter of Em's book has been filled with the love of family and friends. We are so blessed.