"They say everything happens for a reason..sometimes I just wish I knew why."

Last Mother's Day, May 12th, Maya fell off the back of our couch and broke her arm.

It instantly swelled up so we knew something was wrong.

It was late and she had gotten out of bed and wanted to hang out with us.  I had told her five minutes and it had reached the point where she had been told to go to bed two or three times.  She was playing up on the back of the couch and I mentioned she should get down because we don't sit on the backs of couches.  Well, she got down alright...she fell of the back.  Her arm swelled up so fast.  I was prepared to get mad at her, but when I came around the back of the couch I could tell that something was not right.  

Arthur gave her a blessing, we called a friend to come watch the other kids, and we were on our way to the ER.  The wait was terrible, and by the time we got in to see a doctor, Maya was exhausted, and so were we.  They took an x-ray, and they saw a small break so they put a splint on her arm and had us call the pediatric orthopedic office in the morning.

They couldn't see her until two weeks from then and I was concerned that that was too long, but she reassured me that they like to wait that long so the bone has some time to heal a bit and the swelling has gone down.

Once we got into the doctor's office, they took an x-ray and the ped ortho surgeon says that she'll need to have surgery because the break was a bone chip.  It was hard to see on the initial x-ray at the ER because of the swelling and perhaps Maya not remaining still during the x-ray.  She was scheduled for the day after Memorial Day to have two pins put in to place the bone.

She had no idea what was coming.  We got her all dressed for the surgery and they gave her a little cocktail of meds to settle her down.  When the nurse came in 30 min later, Maya was still super up-ity.  She was a little confused and thought she hadn't had her meds yet.  Well, she had and our little Maya just reacts to meds differently than other kids.  They have the opposite reaction on her...instead of sedating, they made her a little bit excited and hyper.

She finally settled down and they wheeled her out and I began to wait.

About an hour later, the surgeon came out and said everything went great and that they'd call me back to be with her while she came out of the anesthesia.  I'm pretty sure that is the worst thing for a mother to have to watch...their child coming out of general anesthesia.  She had no idea what was going on and she was in a lot of pain.  The nurse put some medication in her IV but it didn't help.  So, she pushed some more meds...nothing, Maya was still very agitated and sad.  The nurse looked at me and said, "usually kids are knocked out after I give them this medicine."  She put SOME MORE meds in her IV and still Maya was complaining about pain.  The nurse said, "I can only do one more dose. After than I'm not sure because I've never had a kid not fall asleep after one or two doses."  Oh geez, our little freak of nature.

She finally fell asleep and stayed asleep for about two hours.  I think they like to discharge an outpatient pretty quickly after they come out of the anesthesia, but since Maya had such a hard time and they had to knock her out, they had her recover in a different area of the department.  We finally were headed home after about six hours from the time we got there.

Car ride home - she was pretty out of it.

After about a week after the surgery, we went back to get another x-ray to see how the healing was going.  It was going great so they put another splint on and sent us off for another four weeks.

On July 5th, we went in to get her splint off and the pins removed.  She was so happy to have that thing off.  I was so happy that she could take a normal bath and finally go swimming.  It had been a hot summer and since swimming was out of the question, we had to get creative.

I wondered why she had to break her arm and Arthur kept saying to me, "If not now, then later.  Let's be glad it's now and not later."  I am glad it happened when it did, I just hope our gal can keep off the back of couches and her feet underneath her.