We woulda been done by now...

... but several hours of this weekend were spent in the ER. No, not for me. I didn't cut my foot off with any sort of power tools or anything like that. It was for DQ.

On Saturday we had a soccer practice and she was in goal. At one point during a drill one of the girls took a full-on shot from about 8 feet away which DQ punched away. It was a great save, but she let out a really loud scream afterwards. As the coach, I saw it happen and it didn't look so bad so did a quick assessment check - she could move her fingers and wrist, there was no immediate swelling, etc. - and had her go sit on the side with some ice.

I checked on her a few times and she said it still hurt but there wasn't any swelling so I kept it on ice. Practice lasted 15 minutes or so longer, and when I finished packing up all the equipment I did one final check and did see some signs of swelling. So I decided to take her to a local Urgent Care center that had an X-Ray machine. We showed up at their door at 5:05pm but they said they closed at 5pm and refused to see her. So much for the Hippocratic oath. There's a kid on their doorstep in pain and they refuse to see her. Bastages. We won't be going back to that one.

So we got back into the truck and drove to another Urgent Care center, also closed. Then a third. Finally we determined the only way to get her seen was to go to the ER and face the wait there. We get to the hospital around 5:45 and walk into the ER. The place was a madhouse. It was dark, dirty, and there were about 40 people in the waiting room in various states of well-being. And about another 40 or so sitting next to the infirmed looking bored to death. Great, it's going to be a LONG night...

I get up to the registration desk and the woman says "No take her next door to the "Children's Emergency room." So we wander next door into this Chuck E Cheese-esque lobby, complete with video games and about a half dozen oversized plasma TVs playing Disney movies. And there wasn't a soul in the place.

Ahh this is much more like it. Barbie showed up - with her Ken - to give me DQ's insurance card since I only had an old one. Then she left to go on a date with him somewhere. (Side Note: If DQ had been with Barbie, I wouldn't have left. I would have stuck around to make sure she was OK.) So we sat down to wait. About 5 minutes later DQ gets called back for Triage. A nurse took her temperature and blood pressure, and when she was done DQ asked her what was wrong. Before the nurse could answer, I interjected "They are going to need to amputate your arm at the elbow." DQ shot this worried look at the nurse, who promptly pointed to DQ's 117/79 Blood Pressure and said "That's what the numbers say..."

After we were finished in Triage, we headed back to the waiting room. I knew her arm must have really been hurting because she skipped the video games since she wouldn't be able to hold the controllers. As we sat down, the big screen TV started playing the movie "Underdog".

When it ended. Yes, take that in. When the movie ended, there were about a dozen other kids in the waiting room yet we still hadn't called back. Shortly thereafter we did get called back, and we promptly sat in an exam room through half the movie Cinderella before getting called into X-Ray.

X-Ray was cool though. The entire room was painted like outerspace complete with special glow in the dark paint and purple lights. And when you walked in they handed you some 3-D glasses to complete the effect. Very cool. The X-Rays themselves didn't take too long and we were escorted back to the exam room to await the radiologist to look at the film. And we waited, through the end of Cinderella, and then the first half of the Illinois/Missouri football game. (Go Illini!).

When they finally got back to us, they broke the news that DQ had two small stress fractures, one at the wrist and the other at the elbow. They also said they saw some possible ligament damage that may require therapy or possibly surgery. Just great.

To wrap up the night, they casted her arm up around the elbow and halfway to her shoulder, stuck it in a sling and sent us on our way. After about another 35 minute wait for discharge papers...

We have an appointment with the Orthopedist tomorrow for a more thorough exam and I'll have more details then. I'll keep you posted.

Anyway, needless to say I didn't get much unpacking done Saturday night.