OK, well remember how we were in the ER a couple weeks ago with Katie cause she smashed her head on the wall from running too fast? Well, ummm, little Miss Katherine seems to be going for some kind of daredevil record. We found out last night that Katie has recorded her first (and hopefully her last) broken bone.
Maybe I should back-up a bit and bring you all up to speed...
On Thursday, we were packing for the camping trip. Katie and Andy were in the garage helping me load the car. (Well, really they were mostly making messes, and spreading the camping stuff all over the garage floor.) Andy had taken-out the slippery changing pad and laid it out like a sleeping bag-pad in the middle of the garage floor. Katie soon after came bookin' across and lost her footing, landing on her left side...
Much crying ensued and we were quickly concerned that we had a potential break. Jen and I sat down with Katie in the family room and began a barrage of diagnosis trying to determine if what we feared was true. Having recorded double-digit broken arms as a kid growing-up, I felt somewhat experienced in this department and did all the standard stuff docs used to do to me to get a sense of the damage.
There was no swelling, and no redness, no limited mobility, but Katie seemed to be hurting more than an average fall. We started calling ERs to find out what the waits were like (remember the 8-hour waiting room story for the head-trip?...) After about 20 minutes of calling around and asking Katie "Does it hurt here? Does it hurt there? Can you move your fingers like this? Can you twist this way? Does this hurt?", Katie seemed to be doing OK. I was literally pressing down right on the break spot with medium pressure and she wasn't repsonding with any signs of pain. We starting thinking this wasn't a break, but just a bad bump.
Even though we had this camping trip the next day, and the ERs were showing 4 hour waits, we were pretty sure we were making an objective call... the right call, I mean, she seemed a little hurt, but fine. The reality is, the waiting-room DID play a role here, even though we want to pretend it didn't, and that reality continues to pile up inside me like a bonfire of frustration toward out health care situation.
Katie was adding to the confusion by wanting to go to the ER because she thinks it's fun to stay up late and spend time with mommy at the hospital. So we concluded that it was likely just a bad bruise and that we should wait it out and have her looked the following Monday.
The next morning (Friday) we felt even more confident that we made the right decision as Katie seemed no worse for the wear. She was using her arm normally and not complaining about any pain. Early that afternoon we headed up to Cuyamaca.
A couple times during the trip, Katie said that her arm hurt, but it was brief, no tears, and was really hard to tell if she was saying it for attention or for real. She wasn't nursing it and was still running around and using her arm normally. But she mentioned it just enough times that we agreed we should get it looked at the next day when we got home.
So we get back to SD, and Jen takes Katie to the ER Sunday afternoon. Katie showed a tad of swelling at this point and we were naggingly concerned. Sure enough, she has a small buckle in the upper part of her Ulna. You can see the Xray shot were there is some fuzziness on the left side of the bone... They have her in an Ace-bandage-split right now, and they are going to cast her next week.
OK. So Jen and I now feel a huge chunk of guilt for not just taking her in the first time, of course. Thankfully the decision isn't going to have any ramifications other than the guilt. So chalk-one-up in the "we feel like stupid bad parents" column for Steve and Jen and call ourselves lucky that things turned out as well as they did. Also, I have concluded that even though I have had enough breaks and casts to rival Evil Kenevil, I am still not as qualified as our crummy HMO.
Epilogue: Katie is delighted (for now) at her new splint and sling and can't wait to tell all her friends about it. I'm guessing that the coolness is going to wear-off quickly as she realize the hassle of bathing, dressing and not being able to write or color (left arm remember Katie is left-handed), not to mention the limiting elements around playing and running. So we will keep ya all posted.
Epilogue rant on Helthcare and the state of Southern California: For those of you who live in places where you don't have sit and let illegal aliens go ahead of you in line at the ER, be thankful. For us, well we are living in a place where this is a growing problem with no end in sight. There currently 21 million estimated illegal aliens in the US who have consumed $390 Billion dollars (since 1986) in social services. Kids of illegals (and illegals) are in our public schools, and they have cost us an additional 12 Billion. We spend $1.4 Billion annually providing health care for them. These are dollars we pay in taxes.
I realize these just seem like numbers and that they are hard to digest. They were for me as well until I started to become affected by them. Even as a native and resident of California for 36 years, I haven't felt the real sting of this problem until only recently. Sadly, the situaion is somewhat lost, as the voting minority is now become so strong, that the government is not able to address the situation. The only options for the honest tax-payer to is give-up or get out. It's a life-boat situation down here. And the life-boat is getting smaller, the ship is sinking faster, and the number of people looking for a seat is growing.
My apologies for the rant, I'm bent out of shape here. This post is not about me, it's about Katie. And she's doing fine. I love my kids, love my family. Here is hoping we can make good decisions for them in the days ahead. Peace.
