Just a Long Post About a Broken Leg

Goldie broke her femur a few weeks ago. The biggest, strongest bone in her body. The bone Abe tells me can reportedly bear the weight of some shocking number of oak trees without breaking.

(I’ve since read a thing or two about bones. Things such as: “Bone is extraordinarily strong — ounce for ounce, bone is stronger than steel, since a bar of steel of comparable size would weigh four or five times as much. A cubic inch of bone can in principle bear a load of 19,000 lbs. (8,626 kg) or more — roughly the weight of five standard pickup trucks — making it about four times as strong as concrete.”)

Even without knowing the bits about oak trees and pickup trucks and bars of steel I was shocked at the news of Goldie’s broken femur. I had just sort of assumed we didn’t actually break bones in our family. After all, we’d lived through 18 years of parenting without so much as a broken pinky and, while announcing that surprising fact on occasion gave me a moment of fear that we just might be about due such an incident, it mostly seemed an impossibility.

Kids throwing up at night?

Ear infections?

Eczema?

Oh yes. (More likely to occur than not it’s often seemed.)

But broken bones?

No.

Broken bones were misfortunes for others.

(I’ve done a complete about face since Goldie’s break of course. Now I can’t even see my kids running too quickly down the stairs without panicking they are going to slip and bust every bone in their fragile bodies.)

In any case, it was a traumatic few days initially.

It happened around 1:00 in the afternoon at Flowrider (an indoor surfing type of place) in an unlucky sort of fall that, apparently, delivered force quickly enough to her leg as to override the thousands of pounds of stable-pressure strength of that particular bone.

But nobody knew at first.

She’d torn a muscle surely.

We were told this with such confidence by those attending to her (initially — when I received the phone call, and again after, when Mike went over from his work to check on her — assuming she just needed an Ibuprofen) that, sadly, we stuck it in our minds as certain.

And, even now, I can work myself into tears when I think back on the fear and pain of her trying (and failing) to stand up on her broken leg initially. Or when I think of Mike trying to get her up to go get it examined. Or of her screaming every time he tried to get her up. Or of him lifting her in and out of the car to take her to the doctor’s office. Or of her feeling embarrassed that she wasn't being a little bit tougher when it was probably just a torn muscle. Or of her waiting several hours to be seen at that clinic only to have such pain trying to get on the x-ray table that they told Mike to take her to the ER instead . . . to wait for several more hours before a doctor, helping to lift her onto yet another x-ray table commented, “Her bone’s just floating around in there!”. Or of the times before that pronouncement when nurses kept trying to insist Goldie stand on a scale because they had to have her weight. (Forcing Mike, in frustration over their failure to see that this was impossible for her, to weigh himself and then weigh himself holding her so they could get their precious number.) Or of her being loaded into an ambulance — still in a swimsuit and with no homey or familiar items coming along -- to be unexpectedly transported to Primary Children’s Hospital for surgery and a stay of who knew how long. 

When I received this news, I admit I was quite overwhelmed. I didn’t know what was ahead. I didn’t know if she’d be in a giant cast or immobile for weeks with a new baby coming. I had no idea how long we’d be arranging things so Mike or I could be with her at the hospital. Mike was with her at the moment thankfully, but there was no time for me to get anything to them or to see my poor girl before the ambulance would be taking them to Primary’s. I desperately wanted to feel some control or to be sending them somewhat prepared. And mostly I desperately wanted to be with Goldie. But by this time it was late and all my little ones here were upset and anxious over the news. So I waited to hear from Mike.

It wasn’t until 12:30 a.m. that a decision was made. The operating room was closed, so they'd told us they would most likely try to keep her leg stable and give her pain meds ‘til morning, but they wanted orthopedic surgeons to look closely at her x-rays first. (If there was any sign of nerves, etc. in immediate danger, they would open the OR and do surgery that night.) They ended up deciding on surgery around 9:30 the next morning, so I waited out the night with our kids here and then headed down first thing in the morning. She didn't get in for surgery until 12:30 p.m. though and what they guessed would by an hour and a half surgery turned into three hours. (She had eaten something at about 11:00 the day before . . . and didn't first eat again until several hours after her surgery so the poor girl went over 30 hours with no food.)

Mike left after her surgery and I spent the night with her. She was in a fair amount of pain and both of us were fairly fragile with our worries and the unknowns ahead -- and I was reminded yet again of how easy it is for me to simplify trials when they are happening to others and not myself. I always see them in a tidy little package, and only when experiencing them myself do I see the complexities. And, for a few days, it did seem a bit like life would never be normal again as even getting Goldie up onto crutches was a big production and then she would nearly pass out. 

But, kids are amazingly resilient and already it seems to be mostly an inconvenience. Something that requires a little more work and thinking as we arrange our days, and that limits some activities, but not some impossible frustration. They put a titanium rod in her leg to hold the two broken pieces together as they mend. And apparently bone will just grow and fill in where that third shard splintered off to the side. Goldie is handling crutches like a champ. She's back at school. And even though track and softball are out, she's still going to be able to participate in her school play. (And she even manages to head off with Daisy to places like Old Navy and Hobby Lobby again.) 

And, all along, even in the middle of the most stressful parts, I recognized some tremendous things. My niece, who is a nurse at Primary's, happened to be right in the ER and one of the first ones to see Goldie when she arrived. She was able to help her feel a little more watched over and to tell everyone else to give her extra good care. :) She also told us what a miracle it was that Goldie was admitted. Apparently they have been so incredibly swamped down there that, as a matter of course, they have been turning away kids over the age of ten unless their admission gets approved by the chief of staff. The doctors down there have so much experience. I felt so confident in her orthopedic surgeon. It was clear he had treated a million injuries of this nature. And, even though I was so sad about all the transferring around and waiting she had to do, it occurred to both Mike and me that, had she gotten to the ER in the hospital up near us earlier in the day, the surgeons would have still been there and likely would have operated on her. Which probably would have been fine. But they debated several options and procedures at Primary's -- and they needed to go through her growth plate -- and I just felt so lucky that we had skilled pediatric-specific doctors involved in her care. And, I also knew, right from the start, that, as with all hard things, there is, built in, something powerful -- an opportunity. Many opportunities. This will be an event Goldie and our whole family will always remember and it will change and shape each of us -- and Goldie specifically -- into people we wouldn't have been had it not occurred. Better people. With more compassion and new understandings and likely even new ideas and opportunities. And it has connected us with others and allowed Goldie (and the rest of us) to feel so loved by so many thoughtful friends, family members, and acquaintances. And all of those truths always lend a little awe to these various difficult things in life. 

With that said, I still vote for no more broken bones! . . . 

(The following pictures were taken on our first excursion with broken-legged Goldie. One week in, we felt she needed to get out of the house so we packed her crutches and a wheelchair and went to a nearby aquarium.)