A Break in the Routine

2-9-16

Where should I even start?

Ok, since I have been unable to update anything since Thursday morning, perhaps I will go back to that day. It will certainly not be the peak of the story, but a slow build is I suppose the proper way to tell a story anyway. Plus, the intense stuff isn’t the only thing I want to focus on. I want to point out that at the very least there were some incredible highlights that took place, and it is important to cover all of these.

Thursday evening was filled with so much. We arrived at practice where I found out some horrible news. One of our players who is on both the Pythons and Strikers lost his dad on the previous Friday. We had just talked to him the day before. He was mountain biking and suffered what appears to have been a heart attack. I was so very sad for both his son and wife, who is a very quiet lady that looked to be still in shock when they came for practice that night. I was glad she brought Simon since that poor kid needed an outlet. He always was playing soccer with his dad so it was nice that she recognized he needed an outlet for his grief. Dax said he seemed off, but he didn’t know what had happened at this point. It wasn’t like this was an announcement made before practice. Coach JJ pulled me aside right when the boys and I got there and he told me. I have to say, I am still in shock about the whole thing. Such a shame.

Thankfully, I was given amazing news in the form of the crazy generous gift my parents presented me with that evening. My folks came to practice that night and my mom told me that they were buying a new car. She then asked me if I wanted their old car! Mind you, when I say old, it only is old in terms of it was the car they would have owned before the one they just got. My parents take better care of their cars than a dealership does. It is their beautiful Town and Country! I love love love it for so many reasons, but truly, it was such an amazing gift what with my car being so crappy and just all the other things going on. I don’t even know if I was able to express to them that night how amazing a gift this is since I was in complete and utter shock!

The rest of the evening was a bit of a blur, what with us then heading over to our registration/board meeting. I was happy and in shock and tired and just all around overwhelmed. What is funny is how as I type that I am laughing since truly it was almost a standard amount of crazy for me when only 48 hours later I would be in what could practically be described as hell.

Thankfully, though, I still had a Friday of awesome ahead of me. Dax had his field trip to San Juan Capistrano that morning. It was going to be a quiet day for 5^th graders at the school since 4^th graders were off to the mission and the 3^rd graders had their whale watching trip. Bobby said it was almost eerie in how quiet it was. I wish they had planned something for the 5^th graders that day since it would have been perfect!

The bus they got was clearly inferior to all busses we have dealt with in the past. It started off badly what with the fact that the bus didn’t have compartments on the side for all of the buckets of lunches. I didn’t even know they still used the busses without that storage capacity. Thankfully, all of us parents going along in our own cars were able to just bring the buckets with us. In fact, Ken and I ended up bringing them all back in our car so no one had to deal with them. Mrs. Van Wie was thrilled and relieved. Of course, this was only problem one. The second was just how incredibly slow and clueless the driver was. We could have driven on ahead and not only beaten them to the mission, but got there a good 40 minutes before them. We opted to just follow behind (which had the added bonus of occasional waves from the students on board). The bus seemed to not know where they were. He didn’t use the carpool lane despite the crazy amount of traffic. When we got to the city of San Juan Capistrano he took the wrong exit and at one point practically stopped in the middle of the street and looked utterly confused until they suddenly jetted off to the left, cutting off a big truck. Mrs. Van Wie told us how he looked at her and said, “Which way?” which drove her nuts. She of course is a total sweetheart and ultimately we all laughed at this, but man it was crazy!

Luckily the tour itself was a lot of fun. We had a less cranky docent who was named Michelle despite seeming like she may have been Michael semi recently. She seemed to also recognize the amazing moment when she was in the room that Father Serra would have occupied. She was going over all of the things in a standard room when she showed everyone the white lidded pot that was used by the people there. She explained to them that the Chamber Pot was important due to lack of a bathroom. This took a second for the kids to understand but when a kid got it, you could watch the total understanding and disgust take over their body. It was like watching popcorn right when it all gets hot enough to pop, but each pop was the realization that people use this thing to pee in. It was truly the highlight of the day for me because their innocent recognition of it was awesome.

It of course was once again chaotic in the final 20 minutes on site. Apparently the bus company shorted us an hour of time there, so this meant us already being behind schedule with the slow driver we only had a short amount of time for the gift shop, which of course was the true highlight for the kids despite all of the interesting history. Many kids ran out of time. Luckily, many of them also had parents there that could go back to the gift shop as they boarded the bus.

Ok, y’all, I have gotten to the very bad day. I am going to try and cover all of the 72 hours of Dax’s injury without breaking down. I am hoping that by retelling it here will be cathartic for me. Of course, I just tried to tell my coworker a bit and cried a bit. I suppose this should be expected what with the lack of sleep and the scope of what my child is going through.

Practice for the Strikers was at Hull on Saturday at 2 pm. Dax was thrilled since he really has been anxious to practice more with this team. We got to the field and Dax ran out to kick the ball around with his teammates. Bobby and I set up our chairs and chatted with the kids and a couple of parents there. Ken was coming soon since we just left a registration event we had down the street at Rizzo’s that morning. He was just going to stop by the house and pick up a couple things.

We had been there maybe 10 minutes when it happened. The boys were all kicking the ball, joking around when Coach Pepe did a corner kick for them to practice with. Dax jumped up and did a bicycle kick, which wasn’t unusual. What was off was just how high he got when he did. What also wasn’t normal was how he fell. I watched him drop to the Earth (which I gotta tell you is an image I have been unable to shake since that time) and land on his back. The problem is, you could see his arm was behind his back. I heard the thud, but waited that second since I have seen him doing crazy stunts like this so many times in which he was fine. My gut was still pretty convinced.

Then there was the scream.

I was at his side in a half a second, as was both coaches and Dan, who is DJ’s dad. Thank goodness I had just recently had a long conversation with his wife about what Dan does. He is a long time military medic. I knew I couldn’t have lucked out more in terms of the right people here for this. Dan was able to quickly put together a splint (which the folks at Urgent Care were most impressed with) in order to immobilize his arm.  It allowed me to work on keeping him calm. Those 10 minutes were a flurry of activity. I tossed Bobby my phone and had him call Ken to let him know there was an accident and that we needed to take Dax to the doctor. Dan carried Dax to the car while Bobby and DJ carried our chairs over, which was very sweet. I got to the car right when Ken pulled up and we rushed to Urgent Care. Dan was hopeful it was just dislocated. Sadly, he was very wrong.

They did x-rays, which happened in a room where I wasn’t in. Ken went with him, which resulted in Bobby and me hearing his horrible screams from down the hall. I found out later Bobby was embarrassed by the screams, whereas I was in pain from them. I almost threw up. They gave him some ibuprofen which did nothing to dull the pain. The doctor then came in with the news and told us to take the disc of the x-ray and the paperwork straight to the ER. With their lack of adequate pain meds and the proper equipment, he knew his best course of action was to get him over to where an orthopedic surgeon could check him out ASAP.

We stopped by the house only to drop Bobby off and to pick up Bolt. I quickly changed my shirt and we shot out of the house down the way to Torrance Memorial. Thankfully the ER wasn’t too crazy busy, which was a shock since they always seem to be busy. We went into triage and the folks there were super confused. He had been wrapped up and ultimately he needed to see an orthopedic surgeon which would mean we would have normally gone home and gone to see Dr. O’Bryan the next morning. The problem was, he was in gobs of pain. Plus, the Urgent Care doc was rather insistent that he be seen, so they brought him back and took a look.

His pain was off the chart, which confused the people in ER. He was swollen and nothing seemed right. Finally, after probably an hour of trying to determine what to do, they gave him some morphine. I would have hoped this would help, which maybe it did, but he was still in massive pain, which confused them further. The morphine also started to cause a minor rash on his body. Luckily it was only for a little while.

The ER folks decided to take off the temporary cast he was in from Urgent Care. They then re-wrapped his arm much more straight than it was before, which you could tell was clearly the right choice. Pain levels decreased significantly and he was able to even nap a bit. They iced him only a little, concerned he would get frostbite with too much ice. Later on, he would have ice packs constantly, so clearly things are run differently in different parts of the hospital.

It was around this time, a good 6 hours into the whole ordeal, I finally had my first moment of breaking down. I had been sitting with him, holding his hand or stroking his hair. He finally drifted off to sleep at which point I looked up at Ken. He told me to go take a minute and went to the restroom and sobbed. It was good since I don’t know that I could have kept it together much longer.

He was admitted to the hospital and we found ourselves wheeled to another part of the ER while we waited on a bed. Here, we had our first truly wonderful nurses who doted on him and praised his bravery when he got his IV put in with no tears. In fact, once Dax’s pain was managed better, you could tell he was in better spirits despite the situation. When he had his IV placed, he told me to take a picture since he was now a cyborg and he wanted me to post it to Facebook so people would smile. He knew he had gobs of people worried about him, sending well wishes, so I loved that he wanted people to not worry too much.

We made it up to the room by about 10 pm. Luckily my folks went and retrieved Bobby so he was all good. We were also told that Dax had until Midnight to eat since he was squeezed into the surgery schedule for the morning. Ken ran out and got us Subway and we settled into what we were told was one of the nicer rooms in pediatrics. We had a larger tv and I had a cot that I would be able to sleep on. Ken insisted that I go home, but he knew it would be a futile effort. He thought I would do good with some sleep so that I could handle the morning, but really, I probably got more sleep being with him than I would have if I had been at home.

The night was long. Not bad, just long. I spent much of the time concerned he was comfortable. When trying to sleep in a hospital, you always have to know that someone would be coming in every couple hours for the vitals check. In addition to this, they were checking his fingers on the arm he broke (left arm) so that they knew they were not swelling up. They have been tingly numb since the accident, however we were assured this was pretty common what with the trauma that took place to the nerves. Luckily, he has great circulation and no swelling so now we just have to wait.

In addition to the nurse visits, I also got to help him pee. It was an interesting adventure since we used the pee container while he was still in bed. They needed to see his output and really, moving him around would be silly since if the kid is comfortable, there is no reason to ruin that. The first round was odd since he said he really had to pee, but never could actually go. I am sure some of it was the lack of gravity helping us since he was on his back, and let’s face it, does any 9 year old boy really want their mom helping them pee? There may have been some pee fright along with general embarrassment. He finally managed to go about 40 minutes later (after he had to call out to me several times to wake me) with no issue. The second round was comical since he thought he was done and when I started to remove the bottle, he peed on me. We both laughed because seriously, what else are you gonna do? By the time the morning came around, we were pros at it.

We had the sweetest nurse overnight who was constantly checking on not only Dax, but making sure I had enough pillows or even water or anything else. She told us all that we as a family were very nice since we were not only totally cool with any delays in things, but that we didn’t seem angry with anything going on. I was sad to hear that this was not the norm. She even told me later that she wished we were always her patients since she liked us so much. We lucked out again with the day nurse who was also wonderful on every level. She was all jazzed that she would get to be Dax’s nurse again on Monday morning, but then she ended up having to do other patients. That being said, she made our nurse on Monday let her take the vitals in the morning so she could come say hello, which was so nice!

We didn’t know what time surgery would even take place. It could be as early as 9 or even as late as the afternoon. Thankfully we found out quickly Sunday morning that they would be in to pick him up at 8 am. Ken came back to the hospital at 5:30 so he was there when we were told, which was great. Dax didn’t seem as nervous as I had expected. I think he realized it was the easy part and that surgery meant he would heal quicker overall.

We wheeled down to surgery right on time. I had been told surgery was at 9 and that during that hour we would talk to the surgeon and the anesthesiologist and determine what was happening. All of that talking was surprisingly short. The surgeon was this awesome gruff dude that we had heard all wonderful things about, so I was confident that it would be ok. Dax didn’t cry, which shocked the crap out of me. He was so brave. They gave him the loopy meds via IV and he practically conked out in seconds. Ken and I were not allowed past the red line, which was basically in front of the OR section of the hospital. Dax had Bolt, who was allowed into surgery, but Dax told me to hold him since as he pointed out he would be asleep the whole time so it didn’t matter. As they wheeled him off and he was out of sight, I would have my next moment of complete weakness.

Ken and I were the only ones in the waiting area. Ken insisted we go down to the cafeteria and get some breakfast. It was probably a good idea since it was distracting and let’s face it, lack of sleep AND food would have been a bad idea. After that, we hung out in the waiting area and spent some time updating folks on what was going on.

Honestly, I know people criticize social media, but without Facebook I think so much of this would have been worse. Ken took on the task of posts letting folks know what was going on, which was great because we had a steady stream of Facebook messages, texts and phone calls of people checking in, sending him well wishes and checking in on us to see if we needed anything. I told Dax every message, which made him smile each time so that was awesome. I also have never felt so loved before. It was a showing of who are true friends of our family.

In a related note; I found myself the recipient of an email from none other than Mega Bitch! She and her boys were apparently driving by when they actually saw his accident. She emailed me checking in on us and told me they were very upset to see Dax hurting. I was really touched that she would reach out. I don’t know what this means for our interactions going forward, but perhaps it will be less cold overall, which I would be good with since our kids are friends with each other.

Surgery was a success and went by much quicker than expected. They started earlier than 9, which probably helped. We were both allowed in recovery, which I wasn’t expecting. There were no other patients in there. I suppose there are not gobs of scheduled surgeries for a Sunday morning. He was calm, but groggy. He told me about how he had once seen online these slings that had cute cartoons on them that had stick figures of how a person’s injury occurred. He said there was one that had a figure being bopped in the head with a soccer ball, which he thought was awesome. He ended up telling me all of this later, which cracked me up so I asked him if he remembered telling me. He had not, so that was all very interesting, especially since his telling was almost exactly the same.

We were in recovery maybe only an hour and then we were back up to the room. It was around this time that Ken sent me home for a bit. I was a little reluctant, but realized Ken would still be there with him and it would be good for me to shower and I could also pick up a change of clothing for Dax. We had been told originally we might have been able to go home Sunday, but that ended up changing when we found out he needed antibiotics via IV and his last dose would be late Sunday night. So really, it made sense for me to take some time. It was a short amount of time, but still it did feel good to be home for even a brief moment. Breezer followed me around the house the whole time, which I was able to relay to Dax as proof his cat was missing him.

I got back and my folks and Bobby showed up not too long after. Dax was still a little groggy, but seemed to like the attention. Ken and I ended up going down to the cafeteria at this point with Bobby, my dad and Matt to go look for food. It was good since it allowed me some time with Bobby. Although ultimately, he was bored being there, but happy to get some pudding and a cookie so that was good.

We got back when Dax was just getting his lunch, which was awesome. My folks and Bobby left and it was around this time that it was clear Dax was not ready to eat. I think he ate too fast and still had too much of the anesthesia in his system which resulted in some of the lunch coming back up. No one was too concerned since it all seemed reasonable, which made me less worried. I was also happy that despite this, Dax was not too gun-shy later when presented with dinner.

Of course, all of this had to take place on Super Bowl Sunday. Since we are not football fans, and in fact had our game party scheduled to take place, we were at a loss when it came to what was on tv to keep him entertained. Had there been some soccer on ESPN 2, it would have satisfied him greatly. Instead, we ended up watching the first half of the game. It was fine since I think Dax just liked watching anything, and we still had commercials which were interesting to say the least (Puppy-Monkey-Baby? WTF people?).

Kam and Taylor stopped by, which was super sweet. They didn’t stay long, and thankfully Dax seemed less modest and embarrassed with being in that hospital gown. Dax was shocked they came by at all. He didn’t get gobs of visitors, which is probably for the best, but it was still nice to see people.

We found out right after the half time show that he could walk around, which thrilled him. We got him unplugged from the IV for a bit and we wandered the floor. We went into the playroom and our awesome nurse lady told us we could wheel in a DVD player and he could watch one of the many movies they had in the daycare there. Dax was thrilled because we found Because of Winn Dixie, his current favorite book. I hadn’t realized he hadn’t watched the movie, so it was really perfect. We watched that and Ken went down and got he and I some food. Dax had already eaten a hamburger and fries, yet when he saw my hot dogs (the only thing that was truly good in the cafeteria) we ended up ordering him up 2 also, which he promptly consumed. No vomit this time, so it was nice to see his hunger finally satisfied.

Ken headed out after the movie and Dax and I watched some AFV and SportsCenter. I told him lights out at nine since I wanted him to get some much needed sleep. Rest is good, but sleep was better. Sadly, this was one of the worst moments of this ordeal. I had lied down, he seemed already asleep when he cried out. I jumped up and he told me he had just scared himself. I assumed a bad dream, but he proceeded to explain that he realized how much soccer he was about to miss. He was crying and clearly unable to process this until then. I don’t even think he realized the full scope. I did well and kept my emotional pain in check and told him we would take one day at a time. I told him that yes, he would miss the tournament this weekend but that we would go and cheer, which he liked. I told him that we also needed to still go back to the doc next week so let’s wait for that. Although yes, in some ways I was lying to him, I also know that this is the way he needs to process this. It is in little chunks, so hopefully as we find out more information, he will be able to handle it. He doesn’t realize that he will not be there to help out the Pythons for Section playoffs, which is truly horrible since he was such an important part of why they won Area. Either way, I want him also to know as a true leader of his team it is good to be there for them, in victory or defeat, to boost their spirits. He agreed 100% so we are Riverside bound in a couple weeks.

We both slept much better Sunday night. He hardly woke up to vitals and he didn’t even notice them put his final antibiotics bag on the line. I was less freaked out, especially since he seemed so much more comfortable moving around even with the cast. He didn’t have to pee as much since they stopped giving him constant fluids what with him eating and drinking on his own, so that helped us both out greatly.

Monday morning we were both up at 5:30, but luckily there was some non Super Bowl coverage. We found Cartoon Network and got in some Teen Titans Go before they started airing old school Tom and Jerry, which we both amused ourselves in over analyzing.

I opted to change him out of his gown into real clothing because I knew he would be more comfortable, plus, it ended up making it easier for him to use the bathroom on his own. The gown was in the way of everything. Now he was rockin one of his many Messi uniforms and proudly walked around the hospital floor several times. He decided we would go at every commercial break, which was really cute. You don’t realize how great things like Tivo and Netflix are for content until you are without it. You also don’t realize how many commercials there are without the ability to skip them!

One of the service dogs came in with the helper which was cool. The handler asked Dax about his accident and was impressed with his soccer skills. They bonded a bit since he said he wished that there had been a soccer game on during the Super Bowl, which Dax was agreeing with whole heartedly. He also told us how he had played tennis with Landon Donovan, which Dax was jealous of. I was so glad this man stopped by! It re-energized Dax.

Sadly discharge took longer than hoped, but really, is anyone ever discharged when they think they will be? Our awesome nurse had hoped it would be early since the surgeon had already approved his release and now we just needed the pediatrician. It just ended up being that the one we had been working with (who was a total sweetheart) happened to be out. I was secretly glad, though, since I heard that poor man works almost too many hours and I could tell the nurses, who also spoke so highly of him, were concerned for him. He could get in trouble for being there so much or it could be hard on his health, so really, even though it was a bit of a bummer for us, I was ok with it.

We got the green light a little after noon and probably go home a bit after 1. I know Ken had to rush back off to class. He went to Costa in the morning and met us around 11. I was able to then go down and get some food for myself. In some ways I wish I had weighed myself before this ordeal since I wouldn’t be surprised if I lost a few pounds what with the lack of food. Ha!

I was now back home with 2 thirds of my boys, and you would think I could have just rested, but when you are cooped up the way we were, despite all the exhaustion, I still couldn’t just sit. I did some laundry, cleaned the cat pans and just some little cleanup. I also managed a shower. I sat in my new car for a bit, which had been delivered to me by my folks when they brought Bobby home on Monday. I just still couldn’t handle just being.

I then saw an email pointing out that the Valentine’s Day parties would be taking place on Friday, which meant I had an excuse. At first the boys balked at the idea of going and getting the cards. Within 15 minutes, though, Dax was ready to go. We left Bobby and we headed down to Target. It was good since he was still chatty and getting used to his handicap. We also got to go in the car, which I know we both enjoyed.

We got home as Ken was getting home so we went in and I made dinner. Ken and Bobby played a game of chess while Dax watched some videos on his computer. Things were getting back to normal. It was a little hectic with them since one was stir-crazy and the other attention starved for his parents, so they were a bit obnoxious, and I was exhausted so I am sure my patience wasn’t where it should be. However, I was able to get to sleep around 8:30.

This morning, I managed to not oversleep too much considering we had forgotten to re-set the alarm what with it having been turned off on Friday since I was going to the field trip. In wasn’t too big a deal. I got showered and out the door maybe only a couple of minutes behind schedule. It was probably good too since it certainly wakes you up when you think you are late.

Phew! That was a lot of activity over these days. I am still beat. I just realized I have another minor registration this evening in which only a couple of us will be at, which sucks. However, it is only 2 hours and since practice isn’t really happening in the normal capacity, we will be there on time and will be able to leave by 8. Still, later than I would have hoped.

Andy comes into town tomorrow so we will see him tomorrow afternoon/evening. Bobby has his orthodontist appointment, which isn’t a big deal since it goes so quick, but it also occurs to me he will either miss some of clay class or we will be late for the appointment. Never a dull moment in our house, right?

I am ready for some down time.