Sometimes things just don’t go your way. Even when you are 4 years old. Caedmon had such a streak of 24 hours when a number of things did not go his way.
It started Sunday evening after bath time. I was actually driving home from work, so Clint was manning the ship. Caedmon and Edric had had their baths and were getting out the last of their little boy energy running around while Leighton was taking his bath. Caedmon came running around the corner at the same time Edric did, and as a result Caedmon’s mouth hit Edric’s forehead.
As I pulled into the garage from work I looked up as Clint came running out of the house with blood pouring out of Caedmon’s mouth. Clint was doing his best not to gag, but failing at that miserably (there’s a reason one of us is an ER doctor and it’s not him). Caedmon was crying and screaming to add to the chaos. It took a little bit to calm him down enough for me to actually look in his mouth. Turns out he had torn his frenulum (piece of flesh that anchors your top like to your top gum). And he had also knocked his front two teeth loose. Not super loose, but definitely looser than they should be when one is 4 years old. Luckily I had already scheduled the boys’ 6 month dental appointments for this week so we were already set with that.
Finally after some stories, Motrin, lots of hugs and the promise that he could dress like a cowboy the next morning for preschool he calmed down and went to sleep.
Monday morning went fine, outside of all the boys changing their minds about what they were going to dress up as that night for Halloween…..initially they were going to be: a giraffe; a monkey; and a ninja. However on Monday they all decided that they wanted to be spelunkers. Luckily those were costumes that didn’t take too much planning and we pretty much had everything we already needed minus some rope.
I had to work Halloween night so I helped lay out the costumes and get everything ready before I headed to work. Partway through my shift I got a “can you call me” text from Clint, which usually doesn’t mean good news. I called and Clint told me that Caedmon had fallen in the basement and was complaining of left leg pain and refused to walk on it and just kept crying. I told him to load everyone up and head in to see me at work.
I kind of knew at first glance that it was broken. It wasn’t swollen but he was so scared of anyone touching it and so tearful I knew it had to be. He’s pretty tough and if he is hurt it’s a real thing. Clint called my parents to come pick up the other two boys and I got the xray ordered. While we were waiting an ambulance arrived so I pulled the crew aside and asked if the boys could check out their ambulance. We put Caedmon in a wheel chair and wheeled out to the ambulance bay which Leighton and Edric thought was pretty awesome, Caedmon was still pretty teary.
All the nurses and techs were spoiling them. They got apply juice, stickers, graham crackers and many people stopping by to say hi. I work with such an amazing team of people. One of the nurses even took the script for his pain meds and dropped it by the pharmacy on her way home because her shift was done so that when Clint was taking him home they could just pick it up and not have to wait for it to be filled.
The xray came back and showed a spiral fracture of his tibia. In between seeing and caring for my other patients I grabbed a couple of our ED techs and asked them to put his splint on. I held him and talked him through the splint which he was not happy about and everything hurt. Added to being very very tired I’m pretty sure most of the town could hear him crying and screaming. At one point he looked up and just cried out “I’m just so very very angry”. It broke my heart.
Clint was able to get him home and settled in our room, but it was a very rough night for all three of us. I got home at 2 AM and took over from Clint so that he could get a few hours of sleep so that at least he could be able to function today.
We still had lots of tears throughout the day and everyone took a good nap in the afternoon. All the boys were pretty bummed about missing Halloween, so we got at least their spelunking hats and ropes on and I dressed up and then they trick or treated around our house. I would hide in a room and they would come and knock on the door (Clint helped carry/support Caedmon on his one leg) and then they’d say “trick or treat” and I’d hand out candy. We did this all over the upstairs of our house and we finally got some smiles out of Caedmon.
It wasn’t the 24 hours that any of us had planned on, and while we are still looking at least 6 weeks in a cast and the possibility of Caedmon losing his front two teeth early, we are all hanging in there. And trying to make some smiles and memories along the way.
Hiking Mommy 