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<\/a><\/p>\nI read through pages of truths, of revelations of the sin in my own heart. \u00a0Soon after we moved here I was reading through the Old Testament story of the children of Israel as they wandered about the wilderness. \u00a0They were so whiny and accused God of rescuing them only to allow their children to die. \u00a0I was so smitten because the words were hauntingly similar to my own heart. \u00a0You clearly led us here, only to ruin our children. \u00a0We have worried and prayed more for our boys safety physically, emotionally, and spiritually than any time in our short history as parents. \u00a0I had to come to the place where I trusted God to not only lead David here to work, but to do good things in our children in spite of what it looked like was happening.<\/p>\n
When I finally headed to church, it was late, but I had once again laid down my own rights and said yes to God.<\/p>\n
So there we were, a little over halfway through eating lunch when Liam came flying in to tell me that Adam was hurt. \u00a0I jumped, because it is always Adam coming to tell me that Liam got hurt. \u00a0I wasn’t five feet down the row of tables when a local teenager came to the door and said, “There’s a kid in there who broke his arm.”<\/p>\n
Oh. my. word. \u00a0You don’t have to be good at Math to put those two together and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that if someone can diagnose that authoritatively it means we’re not talking about a simple fracture.<\/p>\n Adam was sitting on his knees next to the trampoline, crying and swaying and cradling his mis-shapen arm across his legs. \u00a0 David was only ten feet behind me and quickly left to get our wallets and cell phones since neither of us brought them along to church. \u00a0The guy who came with the alert went to find supplies and I sat there numbly holding Adam wishing for all the world I had a clue what to do. \u00a0He was in absolute agony and I was afraid to touch him and equally leery of calling the squad because of how long it might take them to get there. \u00a0The guy got back soon with a paint stick, something that seemed to be a cross between paper towels and cloth, and an ice pack. \u00a0I have no idea where he found them, but sometimes I wonder if he was an angel. \u00a0I lifted Adam’s arm enough to get the paintstick underneath and very loosely wrapped the cloth a few times without actually splinting it because his pain with movement was unbearable. \u00a0By then two men from church came to see if they could help. \u00a0One went to bring our van to the back door and the other lifted Adam off my lap and carried him out for me. \u00a0I asked someone to please call ahead to the hospital to tell them we were coming because I was sure they wouldn’t have adequate staff in house. \u00a0David still wasn’t back and Adam was in too much pain to wait another minute so Brian drove us in … or flew us in. \u00a0I spent the trip praying desperately for pain relief for him in one breath and begging God for a good doctor with the other and slowing down Adam’s breathing when he started to hyperventilate from all the pain.<\/p>\n It is incredibly hard to find a good doctor in the area. \u00a0My extended family who has used the hospital some has regaled me with tales of horror and warned me to stay out if at all possible. \u00a0You know, like the grandma who had a stroke and broke her hip and the type of care she received while admitted and then worse, the fact that the hospice nurse discovered a broken shoulder that had either never been treated or had happened in-house. \u00a0We’re just going back to Virginia for wellness checks and the one time I did have to make a sick visit with a local pediatrician I asked him, “So tell me about the hospital here.” \u00a0He paused a minute then said slowly, “Weeeelll, it’s Western Maryland …. but we don’t let anyone else see our patients. \u00a0We cover for other doctors, but no one covers for us.” \u00a0Why did this not make me feel one bit more comfortable?<\/p>\n After what felt like an endless trip, we arrived at the ER and Chief Brian went in to get help. \u00a0Out walked transportation with a wheelchair. \u00a0He was shaking with either Parkinsons or drug withdrawal (lets hope the former) and my blood pressure shot through the roof. \u00a0Adam’s arm was not stabilized and I was totally upset at the idea of this type of transfer. \u00a0“You don’t have a stretcher?” I asked with more force than I meant to. \u00a0“I can take care of him,” he shot back. \u00a0It was a battle of the wills as I repeated my question and he repeated his statement a little more icily and started grabbing for Adam on the side of his broken arm. \u00a0I was so upset and wishing a gazillion times David would be there to transfer him carefully, but he wasn’t; and I’d had too many pregnancy scares to lift his full body weight myself. \u00a0I repositioned him as much as I could and at least asked him to get him from the good side instead of grabbing the painful one …. and then I watched in horror as he simply plopped him into the chair. \u00a0Adam went white and still as his arm just flopped down into his lap and the transportation guy rolled him\u00a0over the bumpy part of the sidewalk<\/strong>\u00a0to take him inside. \u00a0My stomach still goes in knots, remembering.<\/p>\n They made us stop at the front desk to answer questions and wheeled us into a room where Adam was transferred into a bed and his arm was finally holding still. \u00a0And then we got our first miracle. \u00a0His nurse was extremely competent and managed to get a 20 gauge IV in his arm AND draw his labs through it instead of sticking him again. \u00a0As soon as it was patent, Adam got a dose of morphine. \u00a0As expected, there was only a nurse practitioner on duty and we waited on x-rays and then waited on the surgeon to arrive. \u00a0Meanwhile, I discovered that Adam had blood on his shirt. \u00a0I didn’t lift his arm enough to see under it when I slid the paintstick underneath, but I did lift it enough to see there was no blood at that time and at the rate it was dripping in the ER, there should have been significantly more blood on his shirt than the spots we saw. \u00a0I will always wonder if the puncture part of his wound happened during transport at the hospital.<\/p>\n While David and Adam went to radiology the nurse came back to see if I was ok and I said I was fine, I was just worried about who the surgeon is because healthcare in this area is very different from what we’re accustomed to. \u00a0I mentioned that I couldn’t find a local obstetrician I liked and she said, “Oh, I know. \u00a0And now I hear all our cardiac-thoracic surgeons are leaving.” \u00a0Great. I thought. \u00a0Just great. \u00a0Not that we hope to need them. \u00a0It just speaks loudly for a hospital’s reputation when they can’t keep doctors. \u00a0She went to see which ortho was on call and came back with miracle two. \u00a0“It’s Doctor Q. \u00a0And if it was my child, that’s who I would want to do the surgery. \u00a0He works in Annapolis and does call time here on the weekend.”<\/p>\n I think I exhaled completely for the first time since the accident when she said that. \u00a0After more waiting, the surgeon finally looked at the films and said he wasn’t touching it. \u00a0Adam needed a pediatric orthopedic surgeon and would need to be transferred. \u00a0When she was telling us, I asked where this meant because I certainly hoped it was not Morgantown. \u00a0Adam saw an orthodontist and an oral surgeon there who both treated patients like mechanical textbooks instead of humans and who seemed to think that pain medication was as unnecessary as smoking. \u00a0I have no idea if the ortho department is as much of a rodeo, but I wasn’t really interested in finding out. \u00a0She said she was going to suggest the University of Maryland in Baltimore. \u00a0I mentioned Hopkins and then in a moment of clarity asked David what the difference is in driving time between Baltimore and Charlottesville. \u00a0He said it was only half an hour and had the presence of mind to think about the fact that Adam would likely have follow up appointments, so we asked if there was any way Adam could be transferred there instead. \u00a0As long as they have a bed and a surgeon, I’ll be happy to send you there. \u00a0We were both so enormously relieved. \u00a0 It was so much easier to go somewhere we knew was competent and had the benefit of family close by to help with Liam.<\/p>\n They flushed Adam’s puncture site and splinted his arm. \u00a0I was worried about swelling because of how tightly they wrapped him and because the plaster was going to get warm as it dried, but they insisted it wouldn’t be a problem.<\/p>\n It was 7:30 by the time we finally made it to UVA. \u00a0The ER doctor examined Adam and discovered numb fingers. \u00a0When she quietly had an attending take a look, they both left the room for a minute and she returned and immediately took off the splint. \u00a0Adam immediately felt blood rushing into his arm and hand and fingers. \u00a0The ortho resident apologized when she heard the first hospital didn’t use conscious sedation to flush his arm and later she apologized for “all the ridiculousness you had to go through.” \u00a0At that point I really just wanted to read the chart to see what atrocities I’d missed; but I was so relieved to be in good hands I just smiled and said, “We’re just glad to be here now.”<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n