The Briggs Family

Today was one month since Alexa broke her arm and she had an appointment at Children's Orthopedic Clinic. The plan was to remove her cast and take an x-ray of her arm. The x-rays would determine if the pins could be removed or if another cast would be necessary. Alexa was surprisingly disappointed that they were going to cut off the cast, not because she was scared of the machine, but because she loved the artwork and names that had been signed. She begged me to let her keep it, but I was able to talk her out of it by promising I'd take lots of pictures and she could keep some pictures in her room to remember the cast by.

A picture of the cast for Alexa's room. We are in the waiting room.

I had to bring all the kids to her appointment. It's a good thing they are so well behaved.

In the room and waiting for the cast to be removed. She's still happy at this point!

A little disgusted by the looks of her arm once the cast is gone. There was a lot of dry, flaky skin and the skin was orange from the iodine used in surgery a month ago.

The first time we get to actually see the pins sticking out of her elbow. She didn't like that, it was better when the cast had them covered.

Gavin was very interested, but he kept saying, "I don't want to break my arm like Alexa!"

The boys were very good during the appointment. Tysen is tickling Bowen's feet and Bowen is laughing so hard. I love seeing them play together.

The double stroller is a must to keep the little ones restrained when I have my hands full. I was glad that I brought it because after Alexa's x-ray, she got very emotional. She knew they were going to pull those pins out and she was scared. There were lots of tears and screams, but she survived it and I am so glad that's in the past. She got 3 lollipops which definitely helped cheer her up.

This is just before we got the x-rays back showing excellent healing and new bone growth. I'm not going to post the after picture where she has tears all over her face and the most pitiful face ever.

I took a video of Alexa getting the cast removed. She was laughing the whole time because it tickled. If you listen close enough, you can hear her say, "I'm sure going to miss this cast." And the tech said she could take it home if she wanted. Alexa quickly said, "My mommy says I can't!" Glad we had that talk before the appointment or we'd probably be bringing home a stinky old cast!

It was a Tuesday morning and the kids had just finished eating breakfast. As I was clearing the table, Alexa asked if she could go outside and play in the snow. I looked outside and it was a gorgeous morning, the sun was shining and there was a fresh blanket of snow covering the ground. I decided that she could go play while I was cleaning up the kitchen so I began to help her into her snowsuit. Of course, Tysen saw me getting her ready and came running with his snowsuit in hand saying, "Play, snow!" So I got them both bundled up and sent them out to the backyard to play. Our backyard is completely fenced in and we have large windows on the back of the house so I could keep an eye on them. They hadn't been out there long when I heard a scream. I knew it was Alexa and my first thought was that Tysen had thrown snow in her face, because he's ornery like that. I opened the backdoor to see what happened. Alexa was walking towards me, crying. I could tell by her cry that it was serious. She said, "I hurt my arm." I brought both the kids inside so I could take a better look. As I tried to unzip her coat, she screamed. I had a bad feeling. Very carefully I was able to get her clothing off so I could see her right arm. It looked okay to me. I compared it to the left arm and didn't notice any differences. She calmed down once she was sitting on the couch. She had her palm on the seat and was almost leaning on that arm. That's how she was the most comfortable, which seemed strange to me at the time. I asked her several times what happened and she said that she fell off the slide and landed on her arm, but that she wasn't going down the slide (I think that maybe she stepped on the bottom of the slide and slipped off). I put ice on it and called Matthew since he knows more about injuries than I do. Unfortunately, he was busy seeing a patient but I was able to talk to Uncle Brian. I took a short video of her arm with my phone and emailed it to them, but it wasn't very helpful because she wouldn't even attempt to move the right arm. I decided to take her to urgent care, but first I had to get all the kids ready because they were still in their pajamas. After changing diapers, dressing all the kids, and packing the diaper bag, I was finally ready to start getting them in the van. I got the boys out first and buckled into their car seats. I was just getting ready to go back inside to get Alexa when my wonderful neighbor came driving by. I flagged her down like a crazy lady. She rolled down her window and I simply said, "I think Alexa just broke her arm." She instantly offered to help with the boys and even helped get them back out of our van and walked them to her house. She's amazing, I don't know how I would have gotten all four of them inside urgent care and survived the whole day. That was a huge weight off my shoulders, but I still needed to figure out how to get Alexa in her car seat. Unfortunately, she absolutely could not walk. She even told me that when she tried to stand up, it hurt so badly that she thought she was going to throw up. I think that's when I knew it was serious because five year olds don't just make something like that up. I wrapped her in Gavin's big Spider-man blanket (she was in so much pain that she didn't even object) and carried her out to the van. She screamed a little here and there as I sat her down in her car seat, but once she was seated and put her palm on the seat, she seemed quite comfortable. I had to stretch the straps way out and carefully work it under her hand, but then I was able to buckle and tighten like usual without causing her pain. I called Matthew again on my way to urgent care and he was busy cancelling the rest of the days patients so that he could meet up with us. I got to urgent care and then took my time carefully taking off her car seat straps so that I wouldn't move that arm. I finally got her out and carried her inside wrapped up in the blanket. Once inside, the woman and the front desk asked if she could help me. I said that I thought my daughter may have broken her arm and we'd like to be seen in the urgent care. She apologized and explained that urgent care didn't open until 3pm because the pediatrician offices are open until that time. The receptionist recommended that I take her to Children's Hospital. So I began the painful and slow process of getting her back in her car seat, arg! I was so frustrated, but luckily once she was in her seat Alexa didn't appear to be in pain and she was content to watch a Tinkerbell movie. I called Matthew again from the parking lot to explain that there was a change of plans and now we needed to go to Children's Hospital, which is about 30 minutes away. Matthew was almost to the urgent care so he asked that I just wait for him because he wanted to take a look at her first. When he got there, he tried asking her to move her hand and fingers but she refused and got really upset when she thought he was going to touch her arm. We decided that we'd better go get it checked out. We drove two vehicles down to Children's because at that point, I still thought I would be going to work that evening. Once there, I carried her inside to Children's urgent care. After explaining what happened, the receptionist called for a "nurse check" right away and we didn't have to wait at all to be seen. They brought her a wheelchair and sent her to x-ray immediately. She got very upset in radiology and there were lots of screams and crying as they tried to get the right angles. It was very heartbreaking. But once it was done and she was sitting in the wheelchair again, she was happy to get 8 stickers! They sent us back to urgent care to wait for the x-ray results. We just barely got back to the room when a doctor came inside to inform us that she had indeed fractured her humorous just above the elbow and they needed to admit her to ER so she could have an orthopedic consult.

They gave her some Motrin to help with the pain and then we wheeled her to the other side of the hospital to check into the ER. Some orthopedic residents came to see Alexa and they explained that she needed surgery to set her bone back in place and she'd need pins and a cast for at least 6 weeks to help it heal correctly. We were lucky that she hadn't eaten since breakfast because they were able to schedule her surgery that evening instead of having to wait until the next morning. In the ER, Alexa's nurse administered some narcotic pain medication that made her very silly and then they put a temporary splint on her arm to keep her more comfortable until surgery. They also started an IV, which she hated. Then they sent us upstairs to her inpatient room to wait for an OR to open up. We got to meet some more nurses that would be taking care of Alexa during her overnight stay and then the OR was calling the nurse to say they had an OR and they were ready for Alexa to be brought back downstairs to the pre-op area. Once there, anesthesia came to talk to Alexa. The anestesiologist asked her if she had picked out her dream yet. She looked confused. He explained that if she picked out her dream now, she'd be certain to get a good one when they put her to sleep in surgery. She thought for a moment before a big smile came over her face. She said, "I got it...flying rainbow unicorns!" He laughed. Shortly after that, her surgeon came in and she liked him instantly because he was wearing a Scooby Doo tie. She didn't seem nervous at all. Before I knew it, they were pushing her back to the OR and I had to kiss and hug her goodbye. She was so cool. She was like, "Bye, Mommy! See ya soon!" The nurses laughed because usually young children are screaming at this point. She was in surgery for just over an hour and then the surgeon came out to the waiting area to talk to Matt and me. He explained that she tolerated surgery well and there were no complications. He answered all our questions and told us we could see her upstairs in her inpatient room in about an hour. It's typical that the patient stays in the recovery room for about that long so they can be monitored while they are waking up. Parents aren't allowed in there, so Matt and I had about an hour to go get some food. I was starving because it was now after 9pm and I hadn't eaten anything all day. I was just getting ready to eat breakfast when the injury occured that morning and then later in the day I didn't want to eat in front of Alexa. On our way to get food, we walked by a gift shop and I went in to get Alexa a little surprise. I couldn't believe it, but I actually found a rainbow unicorn! I had to buy it. She loves those little stuffed critters with the huge eyeballs! Matt and I grabbed some delicious stir fry from the food court and then went up to her room.

The surgeon gave us these pictures showing the 3 pins that are holding Alexa's arm in place while it heals. Those pins are actually sticking outside of her skin. After about 4 weeks, if the arm is healing correctly, the surgeon will pull those pins out in his office and just put band-aids over the three small holes.

Alexa was very sleepy when she got back to her room. She had ice packs covering her arm, but I peeked to see what color her cast was. It was indeed bright pink, just as she had requested! I tucked her rainbow unicorn under her good arm. When she was awake enough to realize what it was, she was thrilled! The first time Alexa got out of bed (with the nurse's help) to go to the bathroom, she commented on how heavy her cast was. She didn't complain about pain, but she was very restless and uncomfortable that night. She asked several times if she could have ice cream, but they wanted to make sure she could tolerate clear liquids first. It's a good thing because she did vomit several times throughout the night. The nurse gave her a medication called Zofran to help with the nausea. Uncle Brian and Aunt Megan stopped by to visit Alexa. They brought her a little Get Well balloon that she loved. She wanted it tucked in the bed side rail all night so that she'd be able to see it.

The surgeon came by to see how Alexa was doing early the next morning. When he stopped by, Alexa and I were actually out walking the halls because Alexa was getting bored in the room. He took a quick look at her fingers, made sure she could move them all, and then said we could be discharged. We were all ready to get home. Once home, Alexa was a trooper with the pain. She rarely complained or said it was bothering her. Tylenol and Motrin were enough to make her comfortable. Her Grandma Karla sent her several ponchos that would fit over her large cast and still keep her nice and warm in the cold February weather. She got lots of Get Well gifts and cards that did help cheer her up. Thank you to everyone for your kind words and prayers!

Just waking up after surgery

The next morning, still very tired because we didn't sleep hardly at all, but she was ready to walk around and check out her surroundings. She loves her unicorn and balloon!

Finally feeling well enough to eat solid food. She had a huge appitite when when I was reading the menu to her and ordering breakfast, but once it came, she really only ate the egg whites of her hard-boiled eggs!

Now she's home and feeling great! I love this picture of her sporting one of her new ponchos (or nachos, as she mistakenly calls them!) from Grandma Karla and getting a sweet hug from Tysen

The first few days after her accident, Alexa was really depressed. She was sad that I had to cancel her gymnastics and swim lessons temporarily. I thought it would cheer her up to take her to Build-A-Bear Workshop. It worked! She was acting like herself in no time!