On Sunday I was given the privilege of taking care of my 4 year old niece. For me, these are the best days in the world. I get to spend some one on one time with Allie. Now I spend every Sunday with my little family: my mom, my sister, my niece, and me. We have dubbed them ‘family days’. I generally go over to my mom’s at about 11am, have breakfast or we go out, and wait to Allie to come home from her dad’s. We spend the day together and then do family dinner, The BF even shows up for this most weeks. It’s my favorite day of the week. I honestly enjoy spending time with my loved ones. We have fun together. I live for my Allie time on Sundays. My sister tells people that Allie is auntee’s girl (auntee is a combo of aunt and mollee). I am, for whatever reason, her favorite person. Not that I mind. I love that we are so close. And on Sundays she will follow me everywhere. But usually it’s the whole family going places. It’s rare that Allie and I spend an extended amount of time together alone. So when we do get that time, I cherish it. Hence my excitement about spending the day with her on Sunday.
My mom and sister went to pick up furniture at my grandparent’s house In Wisconsin, 2 ½ hours away. I had made plans to get together my ‘my girls’ for lunch so I wasn’t able to go. So my sister went and left Allie with me. Allie found this out when she got home from daddy’s and was so excited. She started planning our day immediately. After lunch she wanted to go to Nickelodeon Theme Park and go on rides (this is at the Mall of America), and she wanted to go to fishy world (aka Underwater World), and she wanted to go to build a bear, and… She was very excited about meeting my friends for lunch. She has met one of them before and the other for the first time. She was pretty good. They are not used to little kids, but everyone got along well. She was pretty content to color while we talked. After lunch, we did indeed go to Nickelodeon to go on rides. Her auntee hasn’t learned how to deny her too many things yet. She grabbed a map and proceeded to show me where ‘her’ rides were. There was a fiasco about her not being able to go on the jumper thing without socks, so we had to go hunt a pair down ($6!). We even went on a few together. We were having a great time playing. The BF called and asked if we wanted to go for a bike ride when we were done at the Mall. Allie put on her negotiating cap and decided she would go on one more ride, and then we had to ride the swings together and then we could go on a bike ride. The deal was made and off we went. After the swings Allie said her legs were tired and asked if we could go get a drink and rest for a while. This is the only thing that got me out of fishy world, that and a promise of build a bear next week. Which she was ok with, after all she owns almost all the animals there anyway. We ventured into “the library” (Barnes and Noble) and all she wanted was a bottle of water and to sit down. She was so cute about it. I asked her if she wanted a cookie or a frozen juice drink, “no just some water”. The ride back to my house was filled with a recap of how cool “the library” was and what a close call we had with Sharky. (Sharky is the mascot for Underwater World. He walks around The Mall talking to kids and handing out stickers. Allie is TERRIFIED of him. We have melt downs when we see him. We avoid Sharky at all costs). All was wonderful as we got out the bikes (she has her own bike at my house too) and helmets and set out to the park with the neighbor kid Gavin, 3 ½.
The park is 2 blocks from the house. A nice, easy ride with the kids. We parked our bikes and the kids ran to play. Gavin and The BF hit the swings and Allie hit the slides and I sat on a bench exhausted. Lots of happiness was had. The BF put Allie on this inertia spinning thing when we first got to the park. It was fun but like all kids, her attention span lasted all of a minute on it. I sat on it and The BF was pushing me. Now like all things that run on inertia, the more you spin around, the faster you go. The faster you go, the more the G-force kicks in. It was hard to hang on to when it really got going. So when Allie came over and wanted to ride on it again because The BF and Gavin were on the swings, I was carefully ‘pushing’ her. Pushing consisted of me throwing her legs over the focus point so it would go on its own. I would let her go around a few times and then stop her and ‘push’ her again. I was trying to keep it from going too fast. This is where the perfect ‘Auntee and Allie’ day ended. I swear she was not going that fast. She had only gone around a few times. But she started to slip, and before I could stop her, she flew off. I was horrified. I checked all the angles, everything landed ok. But the screams of pain said otherwise. I admit the visual check was only a second or two, but no blood, no weird angles…I couldn’t leave her lying there screaming in pain. I scooped her up and carried her to the bench. She was crying “I want to go home, I don’t want to be here anymore.” I had brought along my camelback (hydration backpack) and had filled the bladder with ice to keep the water cool. I opened up where the bladder was and she put her arm in ok. She even pulled it back out and put it back in. I figured she had hit it hard, but everything was fairly ok, but wanted to get her back to the house and call her mommy. I rode back to the house and got the car (and some frozen peas as my ice packs seem to have disappeared) and went back to get her. I got put her in the front seat and slowly drove the 2 blocks home. Once we got there, she would not get out. She didn’t want to move her arm either. First big clue that something was not right. We called her mom and told her what happened. She said they were still a half hour out and to just let her sit there and rest for a little while. She was tired, and if nothing else, had really jammed her elbow hard when she landed. We had to get her into her car seat in the back to be able to get her anywhere. She was so not liking that idea. We tried to explain to her that if she wanted to go see her mother, we had to get her into her car seat. That even if her mother were to come and get her she would have to move. That if she didn’t want to move, or us to move her, that we were going to have to call an ambulance. After many tears and moans of pain, The BF reached into the car and picked her up before she could really process what was happening. She actually didn’t scream once she realized it was happening. We got her back to her mom. It didn’t help. We thought that if she had just jammed it, that maybe seeing mom would make it ‘better’, but she wouldn’t let her mom touch her at all. Not good. She didn’t want to go to the hospital at all. She said she felt ok, but had tears running down her cheeks. You could see in her eyes that she was in agony. She was afraid the doctors were going to take her arm off if it was broke. It was heartbreaking. We all piled into my little Pontiac Sunfire and headed to the hospital. I was feeling awful long before this point, but this made it so much worse. I had hurt the sweetest thing in the world. I was powerless to do anything.
After 3 ½ hours in the ER, and 3 excruciating x-rays, it was revealed that she had indeed fractured her elbow. (She has a fracture in her lateral and medial epicondyle.) Very evident fractures. She had broke her elbow and had had no pain medication for 5 hours and really hadn’t freaked out. She is a trooper. We all took turns sitting in the room with her and her mom. I had to explain to the doctor what happened. She looked at me and said “you pushed me too fast auntee”. I almost cried. But in her completely trusting 4 year old mind, I was still her auntee, and she knew it was an accident. It’s amazing the amount of responsibility that trust comes with, and how hard it is to break. She asked me to stay at her house that night. She wanted me to be near her even in all her pain. There was no way I was going to say no. I called my boss and left him a message that I would be in at noon. At about 11, she received a shot of morphine so she would be in less pain, and hopefully a little out of it when Dr. Mitch (he told her to call him by his first name) came to soft cast it. She became quite loopy instead of tired. She was hilarious. In all the awful, here she was entertaining us like she always does. It wasn’t comfortable as they were putting the soft cast on, but she certainly wasn’t in as much pain. She really wanted to go home. The ER was extremely busy that night and it took the discharge nurse until 12am to get back to her. She fell asleep on the way home. She was carried into bed, her arm was propped up, and she complained. She did make sure we were all there though. We all had to come in and stand next to the bed so she could see that none of us had left her. We still had to get the furniture in the house, return the van, stop and get my pj’s, and pick up her meds. I think I finally crawled into bed at 2:30am. None of us slept well. Allie woke up at 4:30 crying. The morphine had worn off finally. After more meds she went back to sleep. She was up for good at 8:30. She was more than happy to accompany me to McD’s to get breakfast. And she made me get out some of her toys so we could play. We had a good time that morning. It was like she was trying to make up for all the fun we had missed out on the night before. When I finally had to leave for work, she walked me to the door and waved goodbye, with her pouty face on of course. I didn’t want to leave her. I would have given anything to stay and play the day away with her. To do anything to take away the night before’s experiences. I felt like the worst aunt in the world. She had broken her elbow on my watch. I was ultimately responsible. But I don’t find myself playing the 'what if' game. ‘What if we had decided to go back to her house and not ride bikes’. ‘What if I had stopped her before she slipped off’. She’s a kid and injuries are a part of growing up. My sister is not upset. Allie’s father is not upset. Sure they feel badly, we all do. I shed many tears that night. There were lots of kisses and apologies.
Allie has a bright pink cast on most of her arm, and is doing just fine. She isn’t in as much pain, and seems to be maneuvering around with one arm quite well. She even wanted to go out with The BF and me on our weekly dinner with our goddaughter (Allie is also my goddaughter). So even though I feel like the worst auntee in the whole world, Allie keeps letting me know that she certainly doesn’t think so. I am still her auntee and she knows that I would never intentionally harm her. Nor would I let anyone else harm her. She is still able to play and have fun, which is all she needs to be happy. She even let me sign her cast. I know she has forgiven me for any wrong I feel like I have done. In her eyes, I am still the best auntee in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment