The rest of the story

If you missed the fantastic beginning to Thursday, it's here.

After Aaron checked out Sam's leg, we did a quick xray there at urgent care.  I had to sit in the other room because xrays and pregnancy don't mix.  Gotta love sitting across the hall hearing your little one cry and feeling like you've deserted him.  Thank goodness Aaron was there with him so I didn't have to just send him off with the nurse.
After taking a single shot, the nurse walked back in and told Aaron that she couldn't tell him anything, but she'd have the dr come in in a minute.  Aaron picked up Sam, walked into the other room to look at the xray and said "thanks, we'll head to the hospital now".  She tried to tell him that we needed to stay, maybe take another picture...he told her it was obvious that we needed to get to the hospital so we were leaving.  The dr did come back in and soft set Sam's leg to keep it stable for the drive.  Remember that hospital my appointment was at?  Children's hospital is next door.  An hour plus would have been too long for his little leg to float and bump around during that ride.  Thankfully Aaron was able to hold him for that.  During that fun moment I went to switch out Sam's car seat from the van to Aaron's car.  Mostly because I have a hard time just standing there incapable of doing anything to help.  And I was going to be crying too if I had to stand there any longer looking at my toddler's pleading eyes while he cried.
Once we were out of there and he was wrapped, he was back to his happy self.

He barely fussed the entire ride to the hospital.  Mostly he was excited to be able to see out the windows a lot better than he can in the van.  Bless this child for being such a happy kid.

We were blessed with a fairly short wait at the ER, and as we have always had at this hospital, incredible staff.  So great to know your little one is in good hands!  We ran into a few people that Aaron knew (he just finished his Peds rotation there), and his cousin was working in radiology that night as well.

Speaking of radiology...the snapshot of his leg was a little scary.

Wow.
I am still floored at this shot.
I still can't believe he wasn't completely freaking out after this happened.  I still can't believe that this happened from a little roll off the couch-which he's done a million times.  One of the orthos said that it's actually a relatively common thing in toddlers-they catch their legs just right, it twists as they go down and the femur pops open-kind of like a paper towel tube unwinds in a spiral.  We had worried that there could be an underlying cause as to why a femur would break so easily, so we were grateful to hear that while this injury is certainly no fun, it's not completely rare.

Things moved along very quickly, and Sam was taken back to surgery less than three hours after we walked through the door.
Every time we are at Primary Childrens I am thankful for the amazing staff they have there.  I have yet to meet a dr there who isn't just wonderful!  I'm sure there are some as we certainly haven't met many of them-we've been blessed with only a handful of emergency room visits and short stays at the hospital, and a relatively small number of regular appointments with specialists over the years.  But every time we are there, every one of them is great.  The orthopedic team that took Sam back to fix him up was wonderful.  The anesthesiologist was great.  It is definitely the best of the best up there.

It was tough to hand Sam over to a dr and watch him carried off, but I found myself grateful that we've already been through anesthesia with him before (for his MRIs) and that we know he does just fine with it.  I was grateful that Aaron's school schedule this quarter is much less than last quarter and that he was there through all of this.  I was grateful that my parents live just a few minutes from the hospital and came to keep us company all evening.  And that the cafeteria was still open, because I realized that I hadn't eaten and though I thought I wasn't hungry, it turns out that once I saw sandwiches and fruit I realized that I really was hungry!

Sam was done in a little over a half hour-nice and quick!  With this particular break in a child so young, there were no pins necessary since it will just grow itself back together.  So "surgery" didn't involve any actual surgery!  No slicing and dicing, just putting him out in order to set things correctly and getting him all wrapped up in a fabulous cast.

I got to sneak back to see him for just a minute in recovery, but had to face reality and the fact that it was nearly 11pm.  All of our other kids were home on their own-another moment where I am so glad we've reached the point in life where we have built in babysitters.  Aaron volunteered to stay the night with Sam since I know the morning drill and could keep the regular routine at home before going back to the hospital on Friday morning.  Sam was still completely out when I saw him, so I left with a quick kiss and this visual:

That induced sleep look kills me...it's just....weird.

I headed home, making a middle of the night stop at Walmart to pick up donuts so Jacob could take treats to school for his birthday on Friday.  I aslo grabbed balloons and crepe paper because I didn't want to even try to figure out where I keep them with what little mental energy I had left and despite the craziness of the day, he needed to wake up to the traditional birthday decor.

I learned that with a little help from adrenaline, I am capable of pulling a 20hr day still.  In my current state, I'm impressed with myself!

I was blessed with a very uneventful drive home.  No deer in sight, which was my biggest worry after seeing 5 new ones splayed on the road within a few miles of home that morning.  And knowing that a winter storm was rolling in, I was grateful that it didn't come until a few hours later and everything was nice and dry for the drive.

Everyone was sleeping peacefully when I got home, though I had a minor panic when I couldn't find Taylor after checking on everyone.  I found him in my bed, hidden away under a stack of pillows.  We've since had a talk about the fact that if he falls asleep in my bed while I'm gone, he needs to be visible in order to prevent me from freaking out that he's gone missing, especially when I'm strung out from something else happening.

Though it took a while to fall asleep, I realized how spoiled I am to have been sent home to my cushy bed while Aaron was in for a sleepless night at the hospital.  I have never left a child in the hospital without me before, so that was hard, but knowing Aaron would take great care of him put me at ease enough to finally crash for the night.

Next up-Sam's new normal...