Broken Leg Baby

We did not have the best of memorial day weekends. It started with a policeman at my door Friday morning reporting my car had been broken into in my driveway. Bye bye purse and laptop. Who is the big dummy that left it in the car? Oh that would be me. Would you believe me if I said I never do that? Probably not. But its true. The one time...ugh. What a mess canceling credit cards and getting a new drivers license. Scary that it happened in our driveway with my 3 children inside. People are desperate, its so sad. They got nothing of value to them being that I had no cash and my laptop is password locked and they had no power cord. Hopefully they got something out of throwing a paving stone through my window.

Saturday we went to a birthday party for Grant and then a BBQ at the Barczaks. We had not even been there a half hour and Jillian took a tumble off their play structure that is about 6 ft in the air. Don went running and I was close behind. It did not look good and Jillian was crying in pain. I thought she would be okay until I was looking her over and noticed her ankle looked weird. Kind of sticking out deformed weird. Off to the ER we went. Katie (God bless her) joined me while Adam stayed behind with the girls. Walking in to the Express care Katie's flip flop breaks so she is walking around with one shoe and one bare foot. On germ laden hospital floors. Comic relief :) We were all a hot mess.

I held it together until they showed me the x-ray which clearly showed a break in BOTH her Tibia and Fibula clean through and that it was slightly displaced. It was physical pain seeing my baby's broken bone. I felt like a terrible mom. I have one job and that is to keep my children safe and I FAILED. I burst into tears while the doctor tried to console me but all I heard was "fracture, displaced, need to see and orthopedic surgeon first thing Tuesday". I clung to Jillian and told her I was sorry. Katie (again, God bless her) tried to make us feel better. The put her in a hard splint and we headed home.

It was a long weekend waiting for Tuesday morning. We kept Jillian pretty looped up on Tylenol with codeine for the first 24 hours. It was difficult seeing her so out of it. But better for her not to be in pain. Tuesday I called U of M first thing to see a pediatric orthopedic surgeon and hoped that my friend Lyndsay who is an orthopedic PA was right that she wouldn't need surgery. They took another x-ray and determined that the fracture would realign itself and she would be in a long leg cast for 2-3 weeks. This is  an injury in an adult that would require surgery with pins and a MUCH longer recovery period. It really is true that kids are resilient. I was sooooo relieved. And also got a healthy dose of reality being in Motts children's hospital with parents who are dealing with much more difficult and permanent things than we were. Counting our blessings.

Jilli has been so brave and good natured through this whole thing. She let the doctors help her without complaint and has good naturedly looked on while her sisters run and play. She is just so darn sweet. She figured out quickly how to scoot on her butt or crawl and she hasn't let a little thing like a long leg cast slow her down too much :)