Spring Break: Part 2; The Hospital

After a nice relaxed Sabbath at my parents house, we were looking forward to the rest of our week.  Eagerly we got up Monday morning at Grandma Jane's house and the weather was too nice not to play outside on her swing set.  Jonas begged and begged his dad to give him an "underdog" and dad finally managed to get out there and make his son's day.

Trouble is, Eliza didn't listen to her daddy when he told her to be careful and to back up.  She was walking too close to Jonas who had just received said "underdog" and the tire swing threw her into the chicken wire fence behind her and she crumpled to the ground. 

She started to cry and came and found me.  I picked her up and tried to comfort her, but she was hurting.  For real.  And her arm was hanging limp at her side.  We tried cheering her up with food, but she wouldn't really eat.  I tried getting her to move her arm and she just couldn't do it.  I told Ethan we needed to take her in, he said we'd watch her... I said, "For how long are we going to watch her?" (kind of with attitude too, if you can possibly imagine :).  He felt it was serious too, I guess because he said, "10 minutes?"

So, we took her to the Emergency Room.  Amazingly, the doctor came in while we were still in Triage.  He said, he hoped it wasn't as bad as he thought it was... then we went back to our room.  This is my poor, sweet baby waiting...

They brought an X-ray machine into her room, which I thought was so great because moving her is what really hurt.  So they took the X-ray right on this bed, the doctor came in and basically told me that it was as bad as he thought.  She had a Supracondylar fracture of the humorous.  He was consulting a Orthopedic doc before moving forward with anything.  She was pretty much in shock and as soon as they put some warm blankets on her, she went right to sleep.

Then word came from the Orthopedist that she needed surgery, so they were admitting her to the hospital.  She got some morphine right before leaving the ER.  We had to cut her shirt off her and it hurt a lot, even with the morphine.  Poor girl.  But she had some bright eyes once she got her "new" pajamas in the pediatric unit.

She also got a new blanket that her nurse brought her because it had her favorite colors in it, purple, pink, and magenta. :)  She was NOT a fan of the IV, even though they wrapped it in pink.  I'm not sure if her tears were from pain or from fear as they put it in. Probably a little of both.  But she was very brave and did so well.

Because we had tried to give her food and she had eaten a tiny, tiny bit around noon, they couldn't do surgery until it had been at least 6-7 hours!  So we spent the day hanging out in her little room.

One good things about having major surgery on vacation was that we were with family.  So there were lots of people to come and visit.  Aunt Brindy brought me some lunch (I had to leave the room to eat it, because she couldn't eat anything and I felt guilty eating in front of her).  Grandma and Grandpa Hoss came and stayed with me through the whole surgery.  Grandma Jane came as soon as she could and stayed until they took her into the OR, then went home to put my boys to bed (Aunt Brindy and Aunt Sara took care of them for me) and came back with dinner for my parents and me!  Ethan came back for a few minutes to give her a blessing with my dad.  And Grandpa Woody came by to give her some love too!  We definitely felt the love!

They also have a whole room full of movies for kids in the pediatric unit, so she had lots to occupy her mind to keep it off the pain.  We could all tell she was not comfortable at all, but she handled it so well! We were all pretty amazed.

Even though this was not a scary operation as far as life threatening goes... I still would never wish, on any mother, having to send a child back into an operating room.  Here she just as she's getting wheeled away from me.

The doctor came out and told me that everything went well.  He was able to place the pins on either side of her elbow to get a nice secure hold.  Its a tricky placement because of the ulna nerve, but he did it and he did it well.  See for yourself.

When they brought her back to her room they asked her if she wanted me to sit beside her or to hold her and she wanted me to hold her.  I was so happy to finally be able to hold my baby girl!  She was super out of it.  At one point she asked if he was in trouble, when I asked who, she said, "Jonas." I said, "Do you want him to be in trouble?" To which she replied, "Yes, I don't like Jonas."

Then a few minutes later she started laughing and said, "It has a hot dog in his mouth!" "What does?" I asked with a grin. "A shark!" And she was out again.

Oh and any time she was awake, she was trying to get the oxygen things out of her nose.  Her levels weren't quite good enough to take them out, so we had to keep them in for the night.

Daddy made it back a little after the anesthetic wore off and she was awake.  She was watching Tinkerbell and he had bought her a Tinkerbell shirt to replace the shirt we had to cut off.  She thought that was pretty neat.  And the Jazz won! Yay.  We got to feed her some juice and an Italian Ice around 11 pm.  First time she'd eaten since noon.  When I was holding it to her mouth for her, if I tried to back away she held on like I was trying to rob her of her most prized possession.  She was a hungry kid!

I wanted to get a picture of her all hooked up, she had her IV in her right hand, her splint and sling on left, her blood pressure cuff on her right ankle, and the oximeter on her right toe. It made for tricky potty breaks.

After a good night sleep (for her at least) she was all smiles.

Finally it was time she could eat breakfast.  She ordered chocolate chip pancakes, with banana, sausage, and chocolate milk.  She ate part of one pancake, her sausage, a few bites of banana, and downed the milk.

The nurse helped me (by that I mean she totally did it for me) get Eliza's shirt over her splint.  It was painful and sad, but we succeeded!  And then it was time to go home!  They wheeled her down to the exit and we loaded her up in the van full of boys.  I love her little face in this picture.  She is just too cute!

I'll post some updates on her arm soon, I just like to keep the blog chronological... She's doing great!

Spring Break: Part 1; Arches

Call us crazy, but we decided since we are moving to Kentucky this summer, and that its an even longer drive to Utah from there, that we would go to Utah for Spring Break again this year.  

We left Friday afternoon hoping to stop and see the rattlesnakes at the Rattlesnake Roundup on the way.  We found it, paid for parking, got out of the car, trekked over to the exhibit in the misty rain only to find out that we had just missed it! They closed about 15 minutes before we got there!  Everyone was very, very disappointed... in fact, you probably shouldn't mention it to anyone.  It was a rotten way to start our trip.

But on we went.  We drove through the night and pulled into Moab around 7 am local time.  Ethan's parents had decided last minute to meet us there.  So they got a hotel Friday night and let us crash for an hour and a half while they treated the kids to McDonald's for breakfast.  The kids were so cute when they saw their grandparents!  Especially Eliza.  She just latched onto them like you wouldn't believe.  Such a sweet memory.  After a much needed nap and some breakfast, we headed for Arches National Park.

We've driven through Moab so many times on our journeys to Utah but never stopped and decided it was high time we changed that!  Boy are we glad we did!  And that Grandma and Grandpa met us there was definitely the icing on the cake!  Be prepared for a lot of pictures.  

Our first stop was the bathroom and to fill our water bottles.  There happened to be this great rock to climb up while we were there.  The kids were up it in seconds flat.  Grandma Jane made it about 10 feet up and turned around.  She couldn't even bring herself to look back up at the kids for awhile.

 These pictures just don't do it justice to how high we were.  But as you can see, everyone was having a grand time.

Grandpa Woody even made his way up the rock.  But his sweet granddaughter needed her grandpa, so he came back down a ways to pose for a picture with her.

After this stop, we made out way to the trailhead for Landscape Arch.  There are two small arches just off the path of this one, so we thought we'd get 3 for the price of one.  Heading out on the path, the kids were eager for things to climb and jump from. :)

Love my little explorers!

Here we are at Tunnel Arch.  Good thing we filled up those bottles.

And Pine Tree Arch.  This one is really quite large.  They are all so amazing. A nice family photo, sans Bolton.  Maybe we'll photoshop him in and make it Christmas card (since I'm so good at sending Christmas cards). ;)

Some ancient hieroglyphs we found along the way... who knew the Lamanites played Hangman?

Eliza was a champ most of the time.  She only asked to be carried a couple times.  She is such a tough girl.  She sure does her best to keep up with the big boys.  Reminds me of me.

Beautiful Landscape Arch.  On a plaque telling about the arch, it says that in the early 1990s hikers sitting under the arch for a picnic heard rumbling (I think) and ran for cover as about 70 feet of stone fell from the arch.  The arch is longer than a football field!  Its amazing to me how small things seem until we get close to them and then we see how really huge they are!

Jonas was pretty beat by the time we got there.  Just had to document the fit that ensued.  Cause I'm a good mom like that.

The kids weren't impressed with all the walking we had to do and not being able to climb on the rocks all along the way... so we continued on past the arch and started the voyage up, up UP the mountain!  Even Eliza wasn't going to stay down... Only Grandma Jane stayed firmly planted on the ground.

Happy as can be at the top... the parents and grandma were a little less happy and a little (or a lot) anxious... see how Eliza is trying to get out of my grip?  I wasn't about to let her go.

Our view from way up top.  Ethan said we were probably 500 feet up with severe drops on both sides.

It was pretty spectacular though.

The boys were ready to move in.

Love this shot.  The rocks really are ginormous!

This was at the kids' favorite spot of the day... Sand Dune Arch.  It was amazing!  A giant sandbox and big rocks to climb, everyone was happy.  Ah, sand angles.

Jonas' secret hideout behind the arch.

Levi wasn't content to stay and play at the arch, he wanted adventure... He and Ethan climbed as far as you can see in this picture. This was taken as I forced them to come back, maybe if you look closely you can see how upset it made him. He just wanted to keep going.  Too bad you can't hear him crying, then it would be a full sense experience. :)

Eliza wanted to follow her dad and Levi, luckily these boulders stopped her.

Back at Sand Dune Arch, Bryant (of course, monkey that he is) found a way to climb up on top of the arch.  He was so proud of himself and eager to show Jonas and Dad how to follow... Levi was pretty upset that he couldn't quite make it.

We didn't have time for the long hike in to Delicate Arch (nor would the kids have handled it) so we settled for the viewing point.  It was stunning, even at a distance.

The boys were delighted they got to ride with Grandma and Grandpa!

 Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for coming and spending the day with us!  We are so thankful for you and for these great memories we were able to create together!