Tales from an unadventurous family

I've always been secretly happy that my kids are not particularly adventurous. They aren't that in to  sports, have a healthy sense of caution when it comes to outside activities (like climbing, riding, running, jumping) and are usually just as happy playing inside or reading a book than bugging me to take them to a park.

Did I mention I'm not a big fan of parks? I'll save that one for another day...

Arch playing near a big scary plant. 
Oh okay i know outside can be nice, what with the sunshine and the green grass and everything. But still. Anyway, I think we make up for it by all the kids loving swimming. They live for our annual (sometimes bi-annual!) beach holidays. We've got one coming up in fact and they've been talking about it flat out for weeks.

However I like to think that our normal everyday life doesn't involve everyone playing multiple sports, extreme situations or the kind of activities that would naturally lead to accidents.

And who wants those hey? (accidents I mean, not the kids..)

It was only this school term that my hazy sense of calm and well-being has been a little shaken. I posted recently about how Eleanore came off her new scooter, and  broke her wrist.
Just like that.

Now, with the end of term almost upon us, a mere eight weeks after Ellie's accident, and two weeks after the cast was removed, we have just been experienced a strange sense of deja vous.

Archie, our three year old, was playing happily on the trampoline with my eldest son. I'd been watching them. Not because I was concerned, just because it was fun to watch the two boys throwing balls and bouncing and laughing.

I stepped back inside. It was 5pm and dinner needed to be dealt with.
Cue the blood curdling screams.

Arch came inside, being half carried by Jesse. He was screaming and crying. There was confused explanations given. Apparently Arch had fallen out of the metre high safety netted trampoline. His crying continued. I could see bruising on his elbow.
I thought a bath might calm Arch down.
It didn't. I dressed him carefully, he was saying the arm hurt. A lot.
I put him on the lounge and looked into his misery filled eyes.
Oh no. I knew what this was. I had been here before. And not that long ago either.

The patient
I now write three days after the event.
We spent two nights at the Children's Hospital and Arch had to have surgery on a broken humerus. Why that bone is called something that sounds like it should be funny, is beyond me.

One thing a Children's Hospital will do for you though, which is not such a bad thing, is give you a bit of life perspective.

We shared a room with three other sick boys and their Mums. Sleep wasn't really an option.
Two toddlers had broken femurs. That meant they each had a leg suspended with weights and pulleys. Sometimes they were happy, and occasionally they were quiet. Much of the time they were wretched. Then there was the ten-year-old boy in the bed next to us. He had been diagnosed with a disease at seven that meant the ball at the top of his leg bone had slowly disintegrated, causing his leg to continually dislocate. He had just had surgery to create a platform from the hip bone to bolt the leg to. If this didn't work, his mum informed me, they would try a hip replacement.

The first morning of being in that room I was feeling pretty bad. We hadn't made it to the room till after 1am. Arch cried himself to sleep, but at least he got sleep. I curled up on the seat next to his bed and listened to the boy next to us moan and writhe. A doctor was called to decide whether he needed further stuff done in the night. The boy went hysterical. He vomited, everywhere - while I sat curled up about 2 metres away from where he lay in bed, behind a flimsy curtain. Then I listened to one of the toddlers with a broken leg scream, for over half an hour at one stage, non-stop. His Mum sounded wretched and exhausted.

Our broken arm is a pain, literally. Arch has had good moments (he actually laughed as he went under the anaesthetic!) but has also been a picture of misery. We're trying to imagine ourselves on our upcoming beach holiday with this non-waterproof cast and orders to stay away from sand.

It could be stressful. But it really isn't, well, not much.
We're blessed. I can feel that.
Okay, two broken limbs in the one school term isn't ideal.
But there are plenty of people out there going through much worse. I just met some of them. And I know on a world scale of suffering, most of us are blessed to be where we are, whatever's happening.

I bought the Mum of the ten-year-old a magazine and a coffee and told her she was doing a great job. She in turn later bought all the boys in our room a cupcake. We chatted together and found reasons to laugh. I could see that each Mum was doing her best to keep their children calm while living in a stressful environment with stressful circumstances.

When Arch and I left I wished the other Mums well.
They were all looking forward to getting out sometime soon. I sure hope they do.

Arch, earlier this year, with his best friend, in a kind of park.

Comments

  1. Having spent time with my eldest at The Children's Hospital in a ward with very sick children (some of whom were never going to get better), I know only too well the perspective that comes with seeing what others are dealing with. I also know how much joy can be brought into the middle of sadness and exhaustion by the amazing Captain Starlight and their team. I would encourage all your readers to donate to The Starlight Foundation at every opportunity - you never know when you will need them to bring some light into your child's life.

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    1. Great idea Kirsty. Thanks for thinking of that. Here's the link: http://starlight.org.au

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