July 4, 2014. Forever to be known as the worse 4th of July ever. I have put off this post for over 2 months, even considered not doing a post at all, because everyone already knows about it, and honestly it is still hard for me to think about. But I figured I should do it for the record.
We were having a wonderful week with rodeo and gymnastics and family visiting. We were biding our time until we started the customary 4th of July BBQing, so we decided to go for a bike ride about 1:30. Hazel didn't actually want to go, but I insisted that it would be fun, so we loaded up the bikes in the trailer and drove to our starting point.
We headed out on our trek, that started out on a pretty good downhill. I was right behind Hazel, watched her tire start to wobble as we got to the bottom of the hill, then watched as her front wobbled out from under her and saw her poor face hit the ground and heard the scream that followed. I had to go around her and stopped as fast as I could for still going down hill myself and ran back to her picked her up and saw a whole lot of blood coming from her chin, which was her impact point with the concrete. Honestly, my first thoughts were "oh, it's a cut. We'll just go to the ER and get stitches". But through her tears she said " I can't move my jaw", and then I noticed that she wasn't able to close her mouth. My heart sank. By now Troy and Violet who were ahead of us were back, and Troy took off to get the truck. While we were waiting she kept saying things like "is this just a bad dream" and " this is the worse 4th of July ever". My ability to remain calm and rational was somehow still intact, and I was putting all my effort into keeping her from hyperventilating from crying as hard as she was. Troy got back pretty quick, the longest 5 minutes ever. Threw the bikes in the trailer and we went to the hospital.
The ER was pretty standard, they got us back pretty quick, but there was a lot of waiting. Waiting for the nurse to get the doctor to tell her what to do, waiting for the medicine to come that would help her stop being in pain so much, waiting for the CT results, waiting to find out what to do after we found out the CT results. They did give her morphine for the pain, and very slowly she started moving her jaw again, smiling, and talking. It was after she had gotten her pain med and Troy, the doctor, and nurse were in the room that I stepped out to cry it out. I wonder how many times the ER nurses at the desks see parents do this. I just stood there sobbing with a box of tissue for a few minutes until I was able to collect myself and go back in the room.
She came away with lots of bruises, a large scrape on her right elbow, and the broken jaw. Honestly, when looking back and replaying this accident in my head, it could have been 100 times worse than it turned out. The scenarios and what ifs have come and gone and played in my mom brain more times than I'd like to admit. God had his hand in this in so many ways. I am truly grateful.
On our way home from the hospital she had another one of the episodes she had last February when she passed out and had what appeared to be a seizure. We were about half way home and she said she didn't feel good, and when I looked back she was ridged and this time making a whining noise. I yelled "She's doing it again" and grabbed her out of her booster to lay her on the back seat. Fortunately we were stopped a light and Troy was able to get out and check her. It appeared that she wasn't breathing, so he blew in her mouth, and I blew in her face and she woke up. Ugh. Was this day over yet. I figured it was the combination of not having eaten anything all day ( it was 6 pm at this point) and the morphine that caused her nausea. And that this passing out/seizure thing is her bodies way of dealing with extreme nausea. She passed out again when we got home after about 20 mins, but I blew in her face, she immediately woke up and vomited....all over Troy, my bed, herself.
This picture was taken right after her post vomit bath. Just relaxing in mommy's bed with a horse book.
6 stitches
The jaw.
The scrape and some bruising...and a beautiful smile!
She was shown some amazing love and kindness from so many friends and family. This definetly counteracted the "worse 4th of July ever"
On Wednesday she had an appt with Dr. Kuang at OHSU, she is a pediatric facial/cranial plastic surgeon. She said that as long as we could keep her jaw where it was there would be no need for surgery (wiring of the jaw). Which meant no running, jumping, playing, swimming, or chewing. This meant no gymnastics class ( that we had JUST started) and pizza for 6 weeks. Summer just got a lot more boring.
Pureed was the name of the game. This was our attempt at pureed hot dog. We don't recommend this. Quite disgusting. Great Grandma was an angel, she came up with some yummy and healthy options. And for the first 3 weeks straight she got a hot fudge milk shake daily.
One blessing from this ordeal is that I got to take 2 weeks off of work. I just needed to have my eyes on her, for my sanity and everyone elses. I cried more than Hazel did the first 2 weeks, this mom thing was taking a toll on me. So we spent lazy days trying to stay inactive. It was wonderful.
At 3 weeks we went back to Dr. Kuang and she said it still looked ok and still do nothing and chew nothing for 3 more weeks. This visit though Hazel and I rode the OHSU tram. We will probably do this again when we go for her next check up in a couple of months.
As far as we know she is all better. She can eat pizza again and starts gymnastics again this Monday. YAY! She didn't take pain medicine at all, not even Tylenol past the second day. And the only thing that made her cry the whole 6 weeks was the frustration of not getting to run or swim.
Next year on the 4th I know we'll be thinking about this 4th and thanking God again that it wasn't worse, and that it is just a memory now.
