Modajaja: If things really do happen in threes...

... then Janie is DONE!

Diabetes, appendectomy and now broken arm.

On August 11th while at *a kid's destination* with Elizabeth, Lauren and Nicholas, Miss JJ tripped over a timber that was used to mark the edge of the play ground. She landed smack down on her left elbow and gave one of those screams that gives a mommy no doubt that her baby is hurt badly. I picked her up and walked her to a picnic table. She kept saying, "It hurts, Mommy, it hurts bad." Meanwhile all color drained from her face, her lips went blue and she was shaking like crazy.

First thing I did was check her blood sugar (moderately high). Then I called her pediatrician, who told us to take her to an urgent care center. Long story short... Elizabeth drove us to the closest care center where eventually Mark met with us.

Janie was taken back immediately and was eventually x-rayed. It was explained to me that it appeared that she had fractured her elbow, but they couldn't tell how bad it was. Their recommendation was to follow up with a pediatric orthopedist ASAP.

The next day we took her to Children's Hospital (seemed like we'd been there before *sarcastic smirk*) where she was x-rayed again. They declared a type II distal humerus fracture, said she'd need to be put under to reduce the fracture and possibly may need pins placed. The ortho was ready to do the "procedure" that day, but Janie's blood sugars were all over the place and she developed large ketones, so we had to postpone until the following day, giving the ketones a chance to clear up.

They sent us packing with drugs and instructions to return the following morning at 7:00a. The surgeon had worked her into the schedule as early as possible to avoid complications from her diabetes.

We returned the next day (8/13). She had her "procedure" and did very well. It turns out that she had a type III fracture (the worst on the scale) and had to have two pins placed in the joint. I keep putting procedure in quote marks because they wouldn't call it surgery. She was anesthetized, intabated and pins were inserted into her bones... that's surgery to me. They can call it a "procedure" if they want.

She recovered very quickly and was ready to leave before noon. The first several days at home were rough. She was in a lot of pain, had trouble sleeping and had to keep the arm elevated for four days. Her arm was too swollen for them to put a cast on after the "procedure", so she had her hard cast put on 8/19.

She'll wear the cast for two weeks, have it cut off, pins pulled and will be recast. She'll wear the new cast for three weeks.

Phew, I love you, Baby Girl. No more excitement, ok?

8/11/08 Asleep at the urgent care center after the adrenaline was spent and the morphine kicked in.