old news…..

but, really, isn’t all news on this blog old news?  One day I’ll be more on top of things. 

Regardless, this needs to be recorded in Shumway Family History.

Hazel broke her arm. 

Here's what happened.  We were camping just south of Boston at a camp with little cabins.  It was totally raining on Saturday so we were hanging out in one of the little cabins with some friends.  Hazel was playing cards on the bed (only 2 feet high) and decided she wanted to jump off.  Somehow she tripped while jumping (not sure how that happened all that great coordination she inherited from me) and put her arm out to break her fall.  She started screaming in typical Hazel drama fashion.  I crouched down to examine her and I knew the second I touched her arm that it was broken (either that, or she'd stuck a sock up her sleeve and it made a weird crook in her arm).  Luckily there was a doctor in the group of campers and he came and took a look and made a little splint and got us some ice and drugs and sent us straight up to children's hospital in Boston.

Our dear friends just let us leave Charlie and Emmeline there.....in the pouring rain, sick with all our stuff.  They got all our camping stuff packed up for us and brought everything and our kids home and watched them all day....what would we do without good friends?

Jeff and a friend gave Hazel a blessing before we left which really calmed her down.  She was super brave on the way up, but pretty mad at all the bumpy pot holes in the road.  As much pain as she was in, it was obvious that that poor little girl was a little happy that she got to have a little date with mom and dad and so much attention and adventure.  When we got to the emergency room one of the nurses showed Hazel this little chart and asked her to tell us which one of the faces depicted her pain.  Our stoic little girl pointed to number 1.  Maybe she inherited my coordination AND my high pain tolerance. 

Anyway, Children's Hospital was amazing.  They were so sweet with Hazel, gave her all kinds of drugs to take away the pain. 

 

This is Hazel’s happy morphine face.  This drug really made her nose itch, which gave us all a laugh.

We spent a good portion of the day hanging out in our little room watching a the muted cartoon network.  We didn’t figure out that we had a little controller to control volume or channel until 5 min before discharge.  I’m not sure which did more permanent damage, the broken arm or Cartoon Network.  Man, those are some scantily clad cartoon characters.  It was also one of Hazel’s only experiences with TV advertising (they usually just watch PBS).  She laid on her little hospital bed glued to the silent screen watching commercial after commercial of those little girls delightfully playing with all kinds of silly-little-get-lost-after-one-day-not-as-cool-as-they-appear-to-be-when-they’re-at-your-house toys exclaiming after every single commercial, “I want that!”  Ok, enough of my soap box…..I’m mostly kidding, thought it was pretty cute to see her so enthralled by what the world has to offer her. 

Back to Hazel’s arm.  The doctors were worried for a while that the bone had broken through the skin (which means they'd have to do surgery) but after examination and waiting and x-rays and waiting and more waiting they told us they thought they could just set it back in place with a cast.  They gave her this weird drug which just totally dissociated her (she still was blinking and had her eyes open, but didn't respond to us or feel anything).  They sent us out of the room and we had a little date at Au Bon Pain (we were starving by then).  After about a half hour they came back and told us it all went well.   We were very relieved....didn't want to see that girl have to be that brave for too much longer.

She was pretty out of it for a while, but came back to herself pretty soon and was pretty pleased with her hot pink cast (she deliberated long and hard over which color would be best to draw on.)  She went from DETESTING the fact that one of the doctors assumed she’d want pink to decidedly wanting pink. 

We all went home exhausted, to a kitchen torn apart (ceiling guys were in here all day) and a car load full of sick kids and a bunch of camping gear that was pain stakingly packed the day before, only to not be used, get lovingly repacked by dear friends and then begrudgingly unpacked by me.    

All in all?  Not the weekend we were expecting, but quite an adventure.  At least it was raining outside and we weren’t missing a beautiful camping day.  Maybe we’ll have better luck next year with camping.

For now, we’ll enjoy our little stoic Hazel and her bright pink cast.

oh, and check out Hazel’s Blog World for her take on this adventure and some more of the same gruesome pictures.