My Tough Girl

Out of all the children I know I would've placed Katelyn near the very end of that list in order of the likelihood to break a bone. With as careful and cautious as she is I thought for sure we would not be making trips to the ER for her -- Lindsay, yes, but not Katelyn. But at the ripe old age of 7 she has proven me wrong.

I got the call around 11:15 yesterday from the school nurse. It's amazing how technology changes things. I saw the school number show up on my work phone's caller id, but I was mid-sentence on a conference call so didn't pick up right away. By the time I excused myself from the call, my cell phone was ringing. It was the school nurse. Katelyn fell in gym class and was upset and wanting her mom. Luckily I'm less than 5 minutes from school so was able to get there quickly. Now I'll admit that my first thought was that she was fine and just being a bit overdramatic. She did have a bump and complained that it hurt really bad, so the nurse and I agreed that I should take her to get an xray. As soon as I tried to pick her up to take her to the car, I knew what the xray would show. For it to hurt her too much for me to lift her was definitely unlike her and just broke my heart.

The medics were called and we rode to the children's hospital in downtown Charlotte in an ambulance with Mike following behind us. Everyone was great with her - explaining what they were going to do to alleviate her fears. They even gave her IV syringes so she could see what was in her arm, but more importantly to squirt any doctors or nurses....for some reason she thought it was ok to squirt Mike and I too.

The x-rays confirmed that she had broken her left tibia (the bigger of the two bones in the lower part of her leg) and she was outfitted with a very stylish hot pink full leg cast, which she gets to wear for the next 3-4 weeks. She's still in quite a bit of pain, but hopefully tomorrow will be better and she'll get to give her new crutches a try.

While we've had to encourage her to toughen up quite a few times in the past, she's been handling all of this very well and is really showing me she is my tough girl.

p.s. I know I've been away for awhile and I have lots I've wanted to write about, but to say things have been busy is an understatement. Thanks to everyone who is keeping Ruth in their prayers. She's making progress and is in the ICU-step down unit now, but she continues to have ups and downs. She's had a few really good days where she's been able to talk to us - she even talked to the kids via cell phone as they were peeking in her room window.