Where I’ve Been
Less than 10 days after school released for summer break, our summer was unexpectedly cut short and we had to completely change direction. Following that day, I just couldn’t bring myself to start posting again, so I took an unplanned break from the blog. I am making an attempt to come back to this space if I can, and I wanted to try to described what happened just four (only four??) short months ago.
One evening in June, my kids decided to head outside and get on their trampoline. A few years ago they begged for a trampoline and we finally bought one from a neighbor down the street. They played on it a ton at first and did flips and jumps that made this mom nervous.
However, the last year or so, they stopped using it as much and when they would, they would usually just sit on it and chat or my daughter would play with her stuffies on it. So that night in June, their dad went out to join them (another rarity) and even though we had talked about watching a movie that night, at 8pm I could not bring myself to call them in. Just a few more minutes, I thought.
Sadly, hindsight is always 20/20 and I still regret not calling them in. Moments after I considered and decided against telling them it was time to be done, I heard screaming. I would later find out that my daughter had turned around to sit down and had fallen backwards out of the safety net door. When I ran out to her I could see that her arm was no longer in a natural position but completely turned around.
There was no way to move her without hurting her even more, and we didn’t know if she had landed on her head, so I called 9-1-1. My first (and hopefully last) 9-1-1 call. I would later find out that the break was complete and the bone had almost broken the skin. It was a good idea not to move her in order to prevent more damage.
There are no words to describe watching paramedics load your baby girl onto a stretcher and wheel her up to and into an ambulance. I knew it was only a broken arm, but it was still very intense.
She had immediate surgery at the hospital where they inserted multiple pins, and thankfully all went well. After a hard cast and a very long (and fairly boring summer), she did some PT and is now (mostly) back to normal.
June and July were blurs. In August, we were seeing that the end was finally coming as her cast came off after her second surgery to remove the pins and cast. September was a blur of school and kids sports. That brings us here, where I am finally trying to get back to this blog.
I think that’s all I have for now, but one final thing. It is not lost on me that the last post I added to my blog was titled “Do The Damn Thing Now”. And then something terrible happened and all the “damn things” we had planned for summer were over before they began. I implore you. DO THE DAMN THING NOW.
Hope to be back here soon. How are you?