Take note: Long story; Lots of details (some not so good)
One week ago, as I was starting a load of laundry, Lucy pulled a stone/ marble serving platter off the
kitchen island. I heard a loud crash. I ran downstairs to see a pool of blood and a very frightened little girl. I had no idea where she was injured. I thought she had lost a tooth or something. Then she lifted up her left hand and said, "Mommy, I broke my finger". This is when my stomach started doing contortionist moves and I felt an unmistakable physical pain for my daughter. A portion of her middle finger was barely attached and I could see the bone. I didn't scream, and while I tried to 'stay cool' I am sure the look on my face wasn't what Lucy wanted to see from her mama. When I first came down, she really wasn't crying, just had a look of shock on her face, but after she looked at my face she knew something was not right.
I am the first to admit that blood is not my thing...at all; but adrenaline must have kicked in, because within seconds I was in the freezer and on the phone with the 911 operator. I was a bit frantic on the phone because I didn't understand why the woman was asking (what I perceived to be) all these irrelevant questions. I just wanted to know what I had to do at that second for Lucy, like, should I be raising her hand over her head? Ice? Towel? Pressure? I also couldn't exactly hear the lady on the phone as I had a wailing child within inches of me, who wasn't very happy to say the least that I was applying strong pressure to her hand with a towel.
In what seemed like hours (but really more like 5-7 minutes), the ambulance arrived. I thought it was funny that the 911 operator was telling me to make sure that I locked up any pets before the EMTs got there. I am pretty sure I laughed quite loudly in her ear at that one... considering I was trying to limit bleeding on my little girl's hand while also trying to keep her calm. Was I about to go leave Lucy to her own devices so I could put Penny away? HA. The strange thing was, when the EMTs did come into the door, Penny was standing there silently. For anyone that knows Penny, she absolutely does not greet people that way, ever.
At this point, Stella had come downstairs. Thank goodness I had to separate them earlier and she was playing on a different floor when this all happened. She never even looked in the kitchen; so didn't see what happened to Lucy and didn't see the mess either. I almost ran out the door with no shoes, luckily, I had to get Stella's shoes, and then realized, I probably should put some on as well. I didn't have time to change out of my jammies however!
I had tried to text "911" to Dave, but learned quickly that you cannot text the numbers 911; it just assumes you are trying to call. So I had called him at work and the ambulance was just arriving, so I had just set the phone on the floor. I can only imagine what he heard, not having any idea why I called in the first place. I then picked up the phone to briefly say, "we are getting in the ambulance, you need to come now". As one may expect, I wasn't exactly thinking clearly, so I failed to let Dave know why we were going in an ambulance, and where we were going.
We live just blocks away from Johns Hopkins hospital, so that was where we were headed. Luckily the EMT called Dave again to let him know where we were going. On the drive, Stella was buckled into the stretcher and Lucy was in my lap. I was trying to get her to sing with me to keep her mind off things. She looked at me and said "Where did Grandma go?" then, "Mommy, pray". That gave me quite the chills, and still does when I recall it. We'd like to think that Lucy was being watched over by Grandma Karin; its pretty hard to dispute this magic when a 2 year old proclaims such a sentiment during a situation like that.
We get into the ER and the team on standby took off the towel to assess. I couldn't look and was trying to keep Lucy's eyes diverted as well. There were two fingers that had been damaged/ severed. Her middle finger and ring finger on her left hand. Lucy was not very happy, we had to give her something to calm her down a bit.
Dave arrives and you could see a look of huge relief when he entered the room; Huge relief that his kids were OK. He had no idea what was happening when I called and he was thinking the worst as he raced to the ER. So when he approaches the room to hear Lucy crying and just seeing her hand wrapped up... there was some joy no doubt.
After Lucy got a bit of morphine, she was pretty happy. It definitely helped mommy to see her that way. She had an xray and we found out that, despite what it looked like to me, the bone was still in tact with only a minor hairline fracture- good news. Bad news, we couldn't do anything to re-attach her fingers yet because she had eaten too short of a time ago.
To backtrack a bit, when we arrived to the ER, there was a woman named Deevna (Divna?) that greeted us whose job was purely to interact with the children, and help to keep them distracted and calm during their visit. She was amazing. Lucy took to her immediately. She reminded me of a Disney princess- the kind that you would find dancing the hallways and singing to the birds- she made the whole experience soooo much better for Lucy.
This short video features Lucy chillin in bed waiting for surgery with Deevna and Daddy.
After several hours of waiting and having several doctors and hand specialists come in to examine Lucy's hand (and several times of me using Stella as an excuse to leave the room). We finally had some options of how to proceed. We didn't want to wait any longer to re-attach, and we would have to still wait if she was to go under sedation or general anesthesia. We decided we didn't want her to go under anyway, so we chose to do local anesthesia paired with some anti-anxiety medicine. They did the surgery right in the room. Dave was lying on his back on the hospital bed with Lucy lying on her back right on top of him. Basically Dave was giving her a big hug the entire procedure and she did an amazing job. She had to keep her arm very very still and she did wonderfully. Princess Deevna was also bedside the entire time showing videos and keeping Lucy occupied.
Stella and I hung out in the family room and then started exploring a bit to make the time go a little faster. The children's hospital at Johns Hopkins is very new and quite swanky. The lobby is filled with trendy cushy chairs (that are different shapes and some spin) that were fun for Stella to play on and there are neat huge fish like balls hanging from the ceiling- quite neat and distracting for a while anyway!
The surgery actually only took 45 minutes, but seemed a lot longer. Dave couldn't really move that
entire time either, so I am sure there were several limbs of his own that had fallen asleep during the process. They attempted to re-attach her fingers. Now we just had to wait for one week to see if they "took". She had a large club-like soft cast on and we took her home. I gave her some Tylenol and both girls fell asleep pretty quickly. I was worried that night was going to be a long one with Lucy waking up in pain etc. She woke up once (and not in pain). I on the other hand, woke up at least 5 times and went racing to her bedside for no apparent reason. The next couple days, Lucy was doing remarkably well. I think I gave her Tylenol one more time, but that was it. She complained of NO pain. She didn't appear to be favoring her hand either, she was just trying to use her cast to assist with her day to day activities.
Friday evening we started noticing that her thumb was slowing sliding into the cast and it appeared as though the cast was moving downward. By Saturday morning, the cast was basically falling off. And I was basically freaking out. I had to work that day at the zoo for 529 day and we were initially planning on Dave bringing the girls to the zoo while I was working. Change of plans, Dave took Lucy back to the ER, I was working, and thank goodness for our friends Tiffany and Ryan who were able to change their Saturday plans to watch Stella. They ended up taking her to the zoo and then Lucy finished up a bit earlier than we expected so she still got to go too!!
The good news about the cast falling off was they had to open it all up. They said it was looking good. We still had 5 more days until we hopefully heard those same words from the hand specialist. Once again as the days passed, Lucy was just fine... every now and again she would run across a neighbor or person at the store and explain that she broke her finger. But other than that, in her world, it was almost if it had never happened.
Yesterday morning Dave took Lucy into the plastic surgery outpatient center for her appointment. They confirmed what the ER doc said Saturday that things were looking good. If they weren't they were going to have to remove the portions of her fingers. We are not sure about the nail growth, they maybe a little off, and who knows how they will come in, but the important thing is that her little fingers are doing OK, and most importantly Lucy has not really been phased by all this. If anything, I have learned from her and gained strength from this little remarkable lady!
Thank you to everyone's well wishes over this past week:)
age as our girls. We knew Brian when he lived in Baltimore and haven't seen him in quite some time (too long)! He graciously let us stay in his home for our 4-day stay. We were able to go to Folly Beach twice and checked out Charleston proper a couple times as well. Every night of our stay we had the bonfire going out back with good brew and good conversation. Of course, the best part of the visit was being able to see an old friend and watch our kids play. It's an entirely different dynamic in your friendship when you can see your own offspring interact with an old friend's offspring. There are unspoken truths that we both can understand now as well.
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