It started out like this; I was having a leisurely Sunday afternoon phone conversation with my mother when I hear a screaming child coming my way. I mean, really screaming, Fionn is a screamer anyway, but this scream sounded a little more serious than the usual 'my brother won't let me have his toy that I want' scream. So I hung up on Mom (well, I didn't just hang up--I mean I told her I was going and all),I listen to the story about how she was on the trampoline and first her arm 'was like this and then it was like this!' (There were actions to go along with the story, but truthfully they didn't add much and I still don't know precisely what happened to her arm, just that she was jumping on the trampoline and landed on it).
I looked at the arm, there was no bruising or serious swelling; I did the requisite 'can you move it like this and like this,' she could. So I took her downstairs, sat her on the couch with an ice pack and a movie and hoped it would get better by tomorrow. I even threatened her by asking in my most concerned parent voice; "Do you think it is so bad that you need to go to the doctor?" This always works on all my other kids, they always feel a lot better after I ask this question. I know, it is not a good mom sort of thing to do, but sometimes I am not a good mom. But whatever, because it didn't work with Fionn, she said immediately that yes she thought she needed to see a doctor, either because that sounded like fun or because it really hurt that bad. Both, as it turned out.
Later that evening I had a meeting to go to and left her with her big sisters. I came home to find them comforting her after she had bumped it in the bathroom. But she slept well that night and I was feeling optimistic until the next morning she got a little jostled and the screaming started again. So I called the doctor and I called the insurance and I bundled her into the car. There were no more tears now, she was completely psyched. This was going to be an adventure.
In the waiting room at urgent care she was thrilled to see they had a TV, and piles of magazines. And she wondered at every person she saw how they had hurt their arms, because obviously this was a place you went to when you hurt your arm. We looked at magazines, toured the waiting room, and finally they timidly called out her name. We get great renditions of Fionn's name when people first see it.
So, she loved getting her blood pressure taken loved the little red light they put on her finger to check oxygen levels (that is what it does isn't it?), declared that getting her temp checked tickled and practically skipped over to be weighed. She had not had this much fun in a long time. They showed us to a little room where she got to sit on a big old hospital bed. Oh we were having so much fun! We saw a nurse who basically told us they would need x rays and we waited a long time, Fionn singing 'The Ants go Marching' and 'The Tree in The Woods.' She makes up her own words to 'The Tree in The Woods' and she loves the format where she says it and then I have to repeat what she says. Such a sense of power! A very noncommunative tech came and led us to x-ray, snapped a few pictures of her arm, sent us to another room to wait and then back to our original room to wait some more. We sang more songs. We played I Spy. We tried to use a cell phone in a big medical building with iffy cell coverage. The Doctor came in to pronounce the verdict--buckle fracture-- they would splint it and she could go see another doctor who could decide about the cast. We waited some more. Another tech came in and measured Fionn's arm. We waited. She came back and put on the splint--a process which Fionn can describe in detail if you ask her. And found her a snoopy sling. The whole thing was just fascinating to Fionn.
Later that day I heard her detailing the whole story to Liam in the back seat of the car. "And she called me pumpkin!" Fionn says incredulously.
"Pumpkin!?" laughed Liam.
So I explained that calling someone 'pumpkin' was like calling them 'cutie.'
"So 'pumpkin' means 'cute?' Asked Fionn, sounding a little doubtful.
"Yes... sort of," I said.
Liam and Fionn, pondering the oddities of their native tongue; "Hmmmm..."
So we suffered through the splint and sling for three and a half days and then went to the orthopedic surgeon who wrapped her all up in a purple cast and told us to come back in 3 weeks for more x-rays and, hopefully, cast removal.
So far, Fionn is still mostly having fun. She loves it when people ask what happened. And it is especially fun to correct those who say she broke her arm; "Actually, it's my wrist.' After about twelve hours of not holding a crayon or pencil, she started to learn to use her left hand, because she just couldn't take it anymore. She challenges her brothers to hit the cast and then announces 'See! It hurts you and not me because it is hard!" But sometimes at night when she can't get comfortable, or when it starts itching, she just wants the cast off now and it isn't quite so much fun for anyone.
