Sunday morning was spent on goat chores, back-to-school shopping returns at Kohls, hitting Walmart for Molly's hotel birthday party snacks and attempting to pick up the house for the week.
I pulled some frozen chicken breasts and hamburger meat from the freezer to thaw for evening meals during the week and was wondering if I'd ever get my "to-do" list done by the time I go back to school on the 14th.
Ross cooked a frozen pizza at 4:00 and Maisie had a hamburger and fries at 3:30. I couldn't help but wonder if I'd even need to bother with dinner?
Such a hassle.
Molly was invited to a last-minute birthday party in Truro from 5-7 Sunday, which is an awkward time if you ask me, but nobody asked me. We went to Walmart, bought some ridiculous stuffed animal that lights up for $9.99 and drove her to Truro by 5.
Again, what a hassle.
On my way home at 5:22 I received a call that made my stomach drop.
Mike was on the way to the Winterset ER with Ross.
He wiped-out on his dirt bike and was certain his leg was broken.
Of all times, nobody was outside and Ross managed to take his helmet off and drag himself/crawl across Grandma's yard to her back porch.
Mack was inside and eventually heard his screams.
I drove straight to the E.R. where I found him laying with teary eyes and red cheeks.
His right leg was in pain and he couldn't move it.
He was sent for X-Rays which looked fine and we were ready to ice him down and pack it up. However, after review by the X-Ray expert, it was determined he had a fracture across his growth plate and a dislocated shin bone (tibia-fibia-something like that).
I still wasn't scared.
The X-Rays looked really clean to me (since I'm clearly a professional)
How bad could it be?
Of course, I felt bad Ross was hurting and yeah, it sucked he would probably be on crutches during football in the fall, but again, not the end of the world.
It's 8th-grade peeps.
That's when he began complaining of the swelling and pressure in his calf.
I mentioned the swelling to the doctor on call - who happened to be my primary care physician, Clarice.
She became alarmed of Compartment Syndrome and immediately called Des Moines for a second opinion of the severity of the swelling.
Suddenly I was in an ambulance with Ross heading toward Mercy.
Lights were flashing and the driver guy was speeding.
Super Nice Guy.
We talked about our kids and smoking meat.
How weird is that?
In the back of my mind, I knew Ross' calf was swelling tighter and tighter and it was becoming dangerous.
But he had a critical care paramedic in the back of the ambulance monitoring him and she knew what to do.
Mike was on his way with his truck and would meet us there later.
When the Ambulance pulled into the hospital garage I knew it was an even bigger deal than realized.
Ross was rolled into an emergency trauma surgery bay where there were at least 10 trauma doctors and more than 10 trauma nurses, plus people writing things on clipboards and others on computers.
That's when my right knee started uncontrollably shivering.
Doctors and nurses tried talking to me and I did my best to be courteous to each of them.
I couldn't focus on anything they were saying.
Ross was being poked by needles in his leg and foot, stripped naked, questioned as to what happened, put under ultrasound and the surgical light shining in his face seemed to emphasize the level of fear we had just entered. He was crying. He was scrared. We had no idea what was happening.
Mike wasn't there yet, my leg was having these awkward involentary tremors I couldn't get to stop, I couldn't think clearly and everything began to move in slow motion.
That's when a nurse handed me his cross necklace to put in a yellow plastic bag.
It was some sort of sign to start praying.
And that's what I did.
By 11:30 p.m. we were informed compartment syndrome was setting in and it was up to us to make a decision to either slice his leg open from knee to upper ankle to allow his muscles to breathe, or risk losing his leg.
That's when his heart rate rose to 100 and the tears and anxiety started to flow.
He was more scared than I've ever seen him. He was afraid of dying. He didn't understand what was going on, other than a lot of doctors were involved and they wanted to cut his leg wide open to expose his muscle.
So we put our heads together and prayed hard.
Eventually, I got him to smile by talking about Michael Scott and Dwight from the office...
30 minutes later he was in the operating room.
In my 14 years of being a mom, August 4th was the most gutting.
Yet, after the necklace handoff, faith seemed to overcome.
Oddly, I'd never felt so grateful in my entire life.
gratefull he hadn't been rolled under a 4-wheeler.
gratefull he was alive.
grateful our hometown doctor called Des Moines Mercy on a last-minute hunch.
grateful compartment syndrome was detected with little time to spare.
grateful I was with my husband and my other kids were tucked in safe with my inlaws.
grateful this isn't our life, as it is for so many chronically ill kids dealing with life-threatening issues.
On one of the scariest days ever, I couldn't have felt more blessed.
And when I woke up Monday morning, it occurred to me how odd it was my right leg was out of control with tremors the previous night.
My right leg.
I've never experienced any sort of sympathy pain before, but I have no explanation for why my right knee was shaking so violently the night before.
And when the rest of the family came to visit this afternoon, I pretty much realized I must have been born under a lucky star.
We laughed at the ridiculous recliner that seems to go upsidedown, watched a purple "hand" balloon blow around in the E.R. parking lot, saw Life Flight take off, and joked at the tick Ross pulled off his penis this afternoon in his hospital bed.
The thawed out chicken breasts and hamburger meat may not get used this week. The laundry is surely a mountain (if it's even been rotated), I don't have a fancy birthday cake to reveal at Molly's birthday party, the dishwasher is probably waiting to be unloaded and I'll never get my Google Classrooms set up by next Wednesday.
But, I don't really seem to care anymore.
I've got everything I could possibly need.
Hassles Smassles.
No comments:
Post a Comment