Lyssa's broken arm

Well, Alyssa's got to have some kind of record for breaking all the bones in her arm in less than a year. I feel so horrible! I wasn't going to include this little episode in my blog because it was so heartbreaking, but Travis pointed out that it was still a memory even if it was a bad one. So here is goes...about a week and a half ago, Alyssa fell and her arm got pretty messed up. When I saw her arm I started freaking out! I knew that it was a pretty bad break because her arm was all contorted. Trav and I rushed her to the E.R. and they took some x-rays. Here they are. They said she dislocated and broke her arm.

You see that circular piece in there? Yeah, that's a piece of her bone! When I saw these I almost passed out!



Then they put her in a splint and took her by ambulance (no lights) to Children's Hospital.



Then they admitted us, and after hours of waiting, they did surgery to set her arm right. They had to put pins in to hold the bones all together. We ended up being there about 28 hours total, and those hours take the cake for being the worst 28 hours of my life. It was so horrible seeing her in pain. They gave her drugs, but she wasn't really comfortable until they did the surgery. Afterwards, when she was waking up, she was groggy, but you could tell already she felt better. She ended going home with a splint.


These are x-rays of the arm after the pins are put in. (They cut the pins after they know the bone is secure.) We got home Saturday night, and by the next morning she was running around! It's amazing how resilient kids are! The doctor told me one thing that made me feel a little better. He said there is a soft spot (for children) in the femur bone above the elbow, and that it is a common place for a child to break a bone. It was a pretty bad break, but luckily kids heal fast! She is such a trooper! We had a follow up appointment today (a little over a week later) and the doctor said that she is healing really well, and that they will probably be able to pull out the pins, in the office, in 2 weeks, and then she'll only have a splint for 2 more weeks after that.