Laney's Broke Leg (Yes, I am aware I'm tapping into my southern roots with this title)

First, my deepest apologies for not updating my blog in forever. I did receive your emails and texts asking if we were ok, and yes we are, but the 60 days of May were as usual, crazy busy. Anyhow, now that we're back to just normal chaos, I'm going to make an effort to get caught up in the blog world.

Delaney had a first this week. Unfortunately, it was the first middle-of-the-night-emergency-room-visit. Not that great a first, if you ask me, but I guess in our family, broken bones are inevitable. My kids aren't huge milk drinkers and I thought that was the problem, but Delaney drinks more milk than all of us combined, so that theory just shot out the window! We haven't yet had stitches, but we've had 7 broken bones so far and 2 other ambulence rides, so I'd say we've had our fair share of hospital scares and visits!

Around 7:30 pm this past Monday, Delaney, Payton, & Corbin were jumping on the trampoline together. Allegedly, Laney got bounced pretty high and when she came down, her left leg banged on the tramp frame. Since Laney has a flair for the dramatic for all owies, I figured it was just sprained so I let her lie around and ice it. Laney is one of those drama princesses who cries every time she remembers she got an owie, so I didn't know how serious she was this time. Other than the major crying at first, she really wasn't crying about it, just whining a lot. However, when she still couldn't get comfortable and fall asleep past midnight, I figured I'd better take her in!

I called the hospital in Loveland and the hospital in FC (since it's about equal distance to them from my house) to see who had the shorter wait. PVH only had 3 people in the waiting room, so I decided on that. It was raining cats and dogs, so I bundled her up and headed for the E.R. We only had to wait about 15 minutes before being taken back to a nurse. That time when quickly though because one of my brother, Evan's, ex-girlfriends was the hospital EMT so we passed the time chatting. Below is a picture just after Elena took us to our "room". Laney was freezing, so she got a warmed blanket which she LOVED (not pictured)!




















Once we got to the back, the nurse did a quick exam and ordered x-rays. That took the longest, but Laney was so awesome during all of this, that the x-ray tech gave her a little puppy dog. She told Laney to name it something cool, so Laney chose Alice. Yes, that would be after Alice the vampire on Twilight. When asked why Alice, Laney responded "Like Alice in the baseball game on Ty-ligh". Can you tell she has a pre-teen sister???















I tried to get a good shot of Laney on the x-ray table, but she really wasn't excited to get a regular picture at the same time we were taking pictures of her bones.















To make a long story just a bit longer, we got the x-rays finished and sure enough, our little princess fractured both her tibia and fibula (just above the growth plate and ankle). The doc said that had she been an adult, she would have gone in immediately for surgery and would be in a cast for 4-6 months! Whoa! Luckily, she's made of rubber, so it wasn't that bad for her now!

Unfortunately, they had to put on a full-leg splint and that was pretty much awful. She peed everywhere the first time I took her to the potty (you try going potty with your leg sticking straight out and see how well you do before judging!).
















We got back home around 2:30 and daddy came home for his lunch break to see the damage himself.




















Neither one of us got much sleep that night. Laney couldn't get comfortable and kept whimpering and making all sorts of noises that kept me up too. Since it was raining so much, Clint didn't have to work his day job and came home to relieve me for a few hours so I could sleep a little (yes, he got to sleep later that afternoon too).

Around 10 the next morning, we took her to the ortho where she got a hard cast put on. The good thing is that it only goes up to her knee, but the bad thing is that they won't do a waterproof cast for 3-4 weeks because they don't set as hard. I still haven't figured out how to bathe her well and although it has been too cold to go to the pool this week, I know we're in for torture next week! All in all though, Laney has been awesome with her cast. She isn't allowed to put any weight on her leg at all but she doesn't mind being carried around everywhere and being waited on by everyone! She has enjoyed watching lots of movies and coloring and reading so far. And yes, my bed does usually have bedding on it, but it was bedding laundry day when I snapped this shot.





















As you can see in the pictures, she is wearing a pull-up. I pulled these out of a donation pile because, although she is potty trained, since she has to wait for someone to get her there, I wanted to avoid any more messy accidents that might get her cast wet!

As evidenced below, she was horrified at the thought of all of us writing on her pretty pink cast, but she actually loves showing it off now and even said thank you to daddy for drawing pretty pictures on it for her!