The Day My Daughter Broke Her Arm

broken arm childMy oldest daughter has always been a bit of a daredevil, and sadly quite clumsy. While I am a fearful parent, I have never been a hovering parent. I let her explore the world around her as a toddler, I let her climb on all the playground contraptions even though it gave me heart palpitations, and I felt (and still feel) that those bumps and bruises she got with all her exploration were just a part of learning new skills! Her clumsiness was less about jumping from high heights – she always seemed to land on her feet – but more about walking without running into doorways. She’s six and STILL has this issue. So I had a feeling the day of a broken bone was coming, I was just praying for her daddy to be on watch when it happened!

The day came about a year and a half ago (I think that is sufficient time to process my emotions and write about it now!) We were at a friends house for a play date about an hour away from the city. My daughter, Olivia, was four at the time; she and her friends were happily playing throughout the rooms in the house while us moms were chatting in the living room. We hear a big THUD and two of the kids walk quietly in the living room and just stand there. The look on their faces was a bit eerie and there is no sound. I ask where Olivia is and what that loud noise was and they are trying to explain something when she comes whimpering in the room with her arm dangling at her side. I can see that it has a bend in it where it shouldn’t and my mommy friends are muttering under their breaths. “Katie, that’s a broken arm.”

I immediately start shaking and I tell my daughter as calmly as I can that we will have to take her to let a doctor look at her arm. It’s not until the fear registers on my face that my daughter even begins to cry. I pick her up careful not to jostle her arm, also very aware that if I look at it again I might faint. I’m in panic mode and thank God there are 3 other mommies there to watch kids and drive us to the small town hospital that is 3 minutes away. I look down on my coat and see blood and that’s when I know for certain I can NOT look at her arm and can NOT let her look at her arm. That 3 minutes took entirely too long and Olivia kept trying to move the towel and move her arm, and I was just trying to keep it still while her tears turned to screams.

We arrived at the ER and the jaded staff behind the counter looked at me blankly while I tried to explain that my daughter had broken her arm. I know they see this stuff daily and also deal with a lot of over reacting parents, but they were not moving fast enough for me and were requiring me to sign papers while my 4 year old is screaming bloody murder in my arms. My friend finally stepped in to better explain the situation and we took the towel off her arm and then they started to believe me and get us in a room.

The friend whose house we were at just so happened to be a former child life specialist who worked in an ER, so it was basically the best case scenario of company to have in this situation! She helped keep me calm while I tried to keep my daughter calm. She went in the hall when needed to talk to nurses and doctors because I obviously could not hear much over the wailing and I had to hold her because she needed me! During all this process the story we got from the four year old witnesses involved was that they were climbing in and out of a baby crib and Olivia jumped out and “landed funny.”

While they x-rayed and splinted and gave her Tylenol with codeine, I sang her favorite songs, I prayed, and I kept her distracted with a LOT of YouTube videos on my phone…thank goodness for hospital Wifi! By the time my husband arrived, they were sending us back to the city to see an Orthopedic surgeon. Luckily the drugs knocked Olivia out for the ride, but I was nervous wreck. The surgeon was amazing and so calm and helpful to me, as my mama guilt was skyrocketing! He looked at her x-rays and said until the swelling went down, he didn’t even want to remove the splint. The type of fracture that occurred made the bone snap in two at a diagonal and puncture the skin in a small hole, but then it went back into place, so surgery was an option to make sure the wound was clear and not infected or we could see how it healed on its own. With her being healthy and at such a young age he assured us it should heal very fast, so we chose to let it heal on its own rather than risk the surgery.

That night was rough and I spent a lot of time beside her on her trundle bed as we gave her pain meds as often as we could. When she was finally sleeping well is when I finally broke down and processed the whole day and cried the tears I’d wanted to cry all day, but couldn’t because I was in survival mode for my daughter. Every time I closed my eyes I just saw her arm dangling at her side and could not get that image out of my head. I’m not gonna lie…it’s been over a year and I still have nights when I can’t get it out of my head! Luckily I had some anxiety meds on hand and they helped me sleep that night and a few nights after!

broken arm child 2
Being brave while getting her cast on. She always made silly faces during the x-rays like it was picture time!

Kids are amazing and resilient though. The VERY next day, plain tylenol was all that was needed. She was back to trying to balance on the street curbs as I tried to explain that might not be the best idea until we get a cast on! Friends came over and brought her gifts and I started to get fearful that she would purposefully try this again just to get more presents! When people came over they expected to see her in pain on the couch but instead found a four year old bouncing off the walls while her mother TRIED to get her to sit still so she didn’t injure herself further! A few days later she got her pink cast on, I ordered a special princess sling, and six weeks later the cast was off just in time for swim season! It took her a few months to start using her arm again. She was ambidextrous for awhile which I thought was pretty cool, but since then has gone back to just using her left hand.

broken arm 3
She didn’t let that broken arm slow her down any despite my anxiety!

What’s funny to me is that I haven’t really become more hovering since the broken arm incident, but I have become more fearful and anxious about her safety from day to day. Ultimately I know I can’t control every second of her day and I can’t wrap her in a bubble, so I let her play and climb and jump and do gymnastics. I pray for her health and safety and I pray she learned to make good choices! I know in the tough moments that I can be strong for my daughter, but it’s still nothing I ever want to experience again! However, being that she gave her self a black eye just last week running into a door frame…I know the odds are stacked against me!

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Katie
Katie left her home state of Tennessee to come pursue an interior design degree in Oklahoma fourteen years ago. She met a handsome young fella from Oregon while in school, and they decided to marry and settle down in OKC. A dog and two daughters soon followed. She has been a textile designer, showroom merchandiser, custom furniture draftsman and children’s minister, but her most challenging and favorite role has definitely been that of a mother. You can read about the adventures she shares with her family at Strawberry Ruckus. Katie enjoys reading, being creative, exploring old houses, eating peanut butter, zumba and watching complete television series all at once on Netflix.

2 COMMENTS

  1. My son broke his wrist at the growth plate when he was 13, he was rollerskating, had just put his skates on and hadn’t even started to try anything stupid yet, he just lost his balance and sat down funny. He’s skinny and always has been, so his broken wrist was just so obvious, even though we didn’t have bones sticking through the skin I still almost passed out when I looked at it. I used to monitor recess at an elementary school so I had unfortunately seen broken bones before and handled it just fine, but I was completely useless when my own kid broke his! Being a momma is tough!

  2. My 10 years old daughter just broke her arm yesterday, I had worked all week and decided I was going to stay in the house and get out Sunday August 25, but my daughter kept bugging me about getting out the house. I gave in and decided to take her to the park, I’m sitting behind her as she is on the swing, she decides to jump off the swing thinking ? she’s going to land on her feet. Nope not the case at all, I see her on the ground, I’m like okay she’ll get up yeah she’s gets up and scream ? which let me know something it terribly wrong. I see her holding her arm, I’m not going to lie I went into panic mode. I’m not good under that kind of pressure. I rush her to the ER and my nerves where shot at this time but I’m trying to keep it together for all the questions they have to ask, you about your child. So they take her straight Back into a room and they are taking X rays and I’m like can y’all just send a doctor in stat. So we get around to a doctor coming and talking to us and they were all a great team. I had to step out for them to put her bone back into place. I have not slept much can’t get the image out of my head of my child arm??. So Monday she has to go to a bone doctor. I’ve kept her arm elevated and ice on it and ibuprofen.

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