Major Injury

Last weekend sure was busy. On Good Friday we visited the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. We seem to have begun a tradition of going to significant Catholic places of worship, shrines or general holy places on Good Friday. It was great to enjoy the very formal and very interesting service. I love seeing all the formalities and watching how the mass is generally the same no matter what church you visit. Saturday was one were we had no real plan everything happened as fluidly as possible. Well, that is, until.....duhdunduh! The major injury. Olivia and Leah were riding bikes with a neighborhood boy, he's a classmate of Leah's and randomly plays on our street. So there they were enjoying the sunshine and fun of a fantastic DC spring Saturday when Olivia wrecked her bike. Majorly wrecked her bike. Er, I mean Leah's bike. Olivia had been trying Leah's bike all week in an effort to be ready for a big girl bike. Since she had been handling it so well Keith and I had little concern for her cruising around on it. She would have been fine if this boy and his dumb idea of a funny joke(?) of ramming into the back tire of Olivia's bike didn't happen. When he did that she instantly wreck and conveniently in the largest pile of gravel and sand on the street. Thankfully she had on her helmet and Keith was outside. I was inside cleaning up lunch and knew when I heard her scream something terrible happened. Olivia is not much of a screamer, crier maybe, but not a screamer. She screams only when something is wrong. And wrong it was. She was hurt horribly. Her entire right side of her body took the hit of the fall. Her right elbow was scraped up and full of gravel. Her little hip also got scraped with more gravel in it. The doozie was her right knee. She was a crying screaming mess when Keith brought her in. I could see as he carried her up the walk the gush of blood, it looked bad from far away and instantly I ran to the sink and cleared it out. I directed Keith to place her on the counter so that her legs were in the sink. She was terribly shaken up. She was so terrified of the injury, it was awful bad, the dirt and blood all over. I took one look and knew she'd need stitches. While I rinsed her off Keith ran to get bandages. I calmly distracted her. I talked and consoled her but it was not working. Then I realized she would go into shock if she did not calm down and relax. I grabbed a popsicle from the freezer and had her focus on that while I took a look at her knee. The wound was deep and the amount of dirt that made its way inside was overwhelming. There was no way I could clean it out properly without her being in severe pain. No parent wants their child to have a wound this bad. But my gut and experience said it was going to require a hospital visit to repair her this time. I rinsed as much as I could and then while I calmed her to tell her what we had to do Keith wrapped up her knee.

Olivia was very frightened of the hospital. I continued to calm and reassure her that this would be very not scary and was the only way to fix this injury. She still didn't believe me. I can't say she's not wrong to suspect something was going on but as far as stitches go it's a pretty easy fix. Since I cannot carry nearly 60 pound Olivia Keith took her to the car. I drove and he followed with Leah. The local hospital just built a satellite center about 5 miles from us which was so awesome. We pulled in and within 5 minutes she was being taken care of. Keith stayed long enough to carry her inside and put her on the bed. He still had a yard half dug up and a plethora of power tools all over the yard. By the time we got to the hospital Olivia was very calm. She and I talked on the drive over about how Keith and I both had stitches and that it wasn't as bad as it sounded. The PA was wonderful she engaged Olivia in a conversation and really put her at ease. The doctor came in and determined that stitches were required but that we'd have to have her knee x-rayed to make sure she didn't break her knee cap. The location of her injury, right on top of her knee and the combined other injuries made him suspicious of a possible break. Before we went to the x-ray the nurse spread some numbing gel on Olivia's knee. We had to have two doses before they could begin suturing her up. The x-ray was clear which was wonderful news. After 40 minutes of waiting for the gel to do its job the doctor came in to fix her up. The biggest problem was cleaning out all that gravel. He took his time but was very thorough. He made sure she was not feeling pain before going on with the stitching up.

I was pleased with his very gentle way with her. He chatted to Olivia and asked her if she was fine making certain that her knee was still painless. The only problem was keeping her little eyes off the wound. Olivia almost got sick after seeing it so he and I kept her busy by asking her to tell us about the TV show she was watching. I knew that if she remained distracted that she'd be more relaxed and still. It worked. He quickly sewed her up, my little broken doll, then bandaged her up. They put a good deal of wrapping on her to ensure restricted mobility. It was imperative that she not over extend her knee for at least 3 days. With her wound being right on the very top middle of her knee it was so important that she keep it as straight as possible. He knew this was the hardest part of her injury. Not moving is the hardest thing for any kid not to do. She was able to slowly walk to the car and was so cheerful about the whole experience. She told me how she was scared but that when they put the gel on her knee it began to feel better and that's when she knew it wouldn't be so bad. I mentioned that usually the worst part of having to go to the hospital is not the getting fixed up, but getting the injury. She agreed. We arrived home around supper time and were we glad to be back. All the neighbor kids were waiting to greet her and eager to hear her story. She was taken care of by several of her friends which was cute. By bedtime her leg began to ache so we gave her some motrin to help her sleep. She slept quite well considering the rough day before.

Easter morning was a slow start for her, mostly a result of the sad no fun wound. That injury sure didn't slow her down once she saw those eggs all over. Finding her basket was fun to watch as she moved as fast as she could searching the house. A first happened this Easter they both found their baskets before mass so that made both of them happy. Since mass was crowded it was a little difficult for her to be comfortable. She sat next to a delightful man and she told him all about her injury. Her purple bandage matched her purple dress, he remarked at how well she was able to coordinate despite her accident. After church was when it became a long day for her. Sunday was so wonderful out that all the kids were playing and doing everything Olivia could not do. Eventually she was able to sit with a friend and paint which was just as fun since kids love to paint. Still it was hard to watch her sitting out while her friends played. For as much reason as you can give them they long to be active. I kept her busy helping me cook and we had her project to complete so the weekend wasn't all bad. Monday's soccer practice was something I wasn't looking forward to. She loves soccer. Not being able to play is going to be very hard for her. She met her team and thankfully she has the same fantastic coach from the Fall. He is so wonderful with the kids that he told all her new teammates that she'd be out for a bit but that Olivia is very much part of the team. Awwww. She gave everyone a greeting and then we spent the rest of the hour watching Leah's team. She kept busy writing her alphabet animal book which was great because I didn't want her to sit there and feel sad. Wednesday's practice was more difficult. She really wanted to get up and play but it was still too early for her to be going around kicking a ball. She watched Leah's team and kept pacing around. Now that she's feeling better it has become harder for her to sit still. She'll be able to have her stitches out this Friday so she's really looking forward to playing soccer. I'm looking forward to having my busy Olivia back and that great big smile she gets when she scores a goal.