Another “first” in our lives

A broken arm is not an actual milestone in your child’s development so I was hoping we would all avoid it.
No such luck. Our youngest is now the first in our household to wear a cast but the process of his arm being plastered was quite a family affair!
I was trying to calmly comfort Christian and reassure Natalie as we made our way to the ER, while hiding my shaking hands. I was worried that Christian would be upset about having to have a cast, so we started talking about it on the way to the hospital to prepare him. He was able to stop crying long enough to ask if I thought he could get a blue one.

I started writing two posts before this one about the whole process but now that they’re written, I feel much better! (I know it’s not about me but I had to write the whole thing out anyway!) When we got home last night, I was upset. I waited until he was asleep in bed to get too upset but then I was mad that if I’d been standing there, I could have caught him; I was glad my husband could make it downstairs before the x-rays, etc. but I was mad that I became invisible to other doctors when he was there.

I felt so guilty last night because I wasn’t holding his hand when they drew blood and inserted the IV (for conscious sedation, before reducing the fractures). I felt guilty that he saw me leave the room before they did it and I was a little jealous that Tim got to stay.
However, I am glad that I was able to leave the room(s) with Natalie as she actually understood more of what was going on.

She had to go to the bathroom twice while we were there. (She had just gone before we left too so it was quite obviously nerves). She wanted to know if would be able to sleep with that thing on. She wondered if Christian would have his cast off before the end of swimming season; she worried about how he would play outside because his arm would be hot and what would we do if it started to rain? She knows a cast can’t get wet and she still is not convinced that I will be able to give him a bath tonight.

After having no nap, the after-effects of the medicine and staying up late, Christian fell asleep with no trouble. Natalie was up twice during the night, once throwing up in her bed and talking about a bad dream; I slept with her in her loft bed for the first time since we moved here. (I did manage to change the sheets first!) She awoke later after another dream that “something bad would happen” but was able to go right back to sleep afterwards.

I won’t think about how we all would have handled things if Natalie and I had stayed with Christian for his procedures! Then again, maybe I should have kept her in there. A 7-year-old’s imagination of what was going on may have been much worse than the reality.