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The trampoline debate has been on ongoing thing since we moved to this house seven (!) years ago. We both agreed that they are dangerous, and that our kids are not ever allowed to be on one unless we were physically present to supervise. That meant no trampolining at friends' homes with or without an enclosure. Our kids were convinced that we were the meanest parents on all the earth.
As many of them have gotten older, a trampoline began to seem like a possibility for us. The kids would love it, and it would be fabulous physical therapy for the girls. It would also provide some energy management for some of the more active boys in our home! We would certainly get an enclosure, rules would be established, and rules followed, and our kids would finally get the chance to live like "normal" kids in our community. Against his better judgement, Dr. Daddy Bob agreed, and on a whim, ordered a nice one online in the fall of 2009.
The kids only had a few short weeks to use it in the fall before the snow covered the jumping surface. But while possible, they had jumped on it almost every single day. That trampoline was getting some good use! When the snow melted this spring, the trampoline was one of the first things to get some attention again from the kids. Every day. Because it was fun, and it was good for them.
Last night, for whatever reason, all of our kids were getting along fabulously. All of them. All 8 of them. As naturally tends to occur, the kids ended up in the backyard on the trampoline during dusk, just before bedtime. Nothing new, nothing strange, pretty routine....with the exception that tonight, the two oldest boys were out there as well.
Bob and I were inside with the baby, and we could hear them squealing with joy and giggling like crazy through the open window for quite a long time. As the clock neared 8pm, we began to hear whiny complaining....again quite typical for kids whose bedtimes were quickly approaching. Within minutes of the whiny onset, the kids began parading inside, clunking up the stairs, through the house, and blaming each other for this and that.
Or so we were assuming......
Alex came in carrying a crying Thomas who was complaining about his left arm. He was a bit hysterical, obviously tired, and we could barely understand what he was saying. Alex informed us that Thomas had landed on his left arm, and then began crying. The big boys had thought it would be neat to see how high they could make the little ones "fly" if they all jumped at the same time. Apparently, Tubby can fly 3 feet up into the air. Laura thought their ride was "awesome!" Tubby? Not so much.
Upon evaluation, it was quite apparent that something did NOT look right with Thomas's arm, right at the elbow level. Was it broken? Or just dislocated as so many of our other kids had problems with when they were young? Bob couldn't tell for sure, and nothing but an xray was going to be able to make that decision.
Alex drove as I carried poor little Tubby to the ER. He was in such pain, and movement of any kind was so awful to see for him. Our ER was fairly calm, so we were seen rather quickly. Tubby's arm got grimaces from almost everyone who saw him, indicating that indeed we had made the right decision to bring him in. They prepped him, iced him, gave him an IV, as Tubby finally fell asleep, crying, as I continued to hold him and sing "You Are My Sunshine". Within an hour of injury, my sweet little boy was given an IV dose of Morphine. Poor dude.
Once the morphine was on board, they wheeled Thomas to xray. The images were excruciating for him, even with pain meds. He cried with each movement, but couldn't open his eyes. To everyone involved, it seemed quite clear that this little boy's arm was broken.
Reading the xrays, the doc thought otherwise. No break was seen, so he was wheeled back to xray in order to get comparison studies of his other arm. More images, more pain. He was now totally awake, and very much not happy about his plight. Upon compare, things still looked fine. We were told he just had a bad bruise with muscle tissue damage, and the dent in his arm(probably caused by his jacket sleeve buckle) could have bruised the bone as well. They wrapped him well in an ace bandage, put his arm in a sling, and sent us home with a giant Snoopy balloon and to bed by 10:30pm.
Tubby was tucked in next to me in bed, and didn't move a muscle all night despite Bethany's typical antsy antics. When he awoke in the morning, he began to cry more. The pain was just so much. It just didn't add up.
I received a phone call from the ER doc shortly after I returned from driving the kids to school. Upon review of the xrays with the radiologist, a break was found in the upper ulna, reaching into the elbow space. Finally! The whole scene now made sense!
They had us return to the ER for splinting and soft casting. Poor Tubby winced as his arm was carefully moved about. Laura distracted him with Batman toys. A very kind ER doc an her Australian accented assistant wrapped that little arm up well. Soon enough, it was tucked back into the little black sling around Tubby's neck, and he was good to go.
And there you have it. Tubby broke his arm. On our trampoline.
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