Broken bones

I'm sitting here in my living room, wrapped in an afghan, cup of coffee beside me, listening. I'm listening to the noises going on around me: my children singing songs and talking to each other, my brain swollen and sore from a recent injury, my arm: broken and wounded...

I'm alive.

I was riding my bike with my Newfoundland, as I do almost every day. A number of situations came in to play that were unusual, on this particular day. We hadn't ridden in several days because of a medication I'm on that needs me to not be out in the sun. My bike was shaking and handling funny, so I slowed down to get off of it, when a neighbor's unleashed dog came out around a vehicle to approach me. My dog (who can pull up to a 1,000 lb cart), yanked hard (part pent up energy from no walk, and part wanting to play with a dog, and part puppy nonsense that has trouble with impulse control) and launched me about 10 feet over my handle bars and on to the ground. I heard my head hit the ground. I felt the impact.

I was dazed, stunned, and a plethora of medical crises education washed over. Assess, assess, assess. I sat up, and my neighbors crowded around.

Are you all right?
Just give me a minute. I just need a minute. What happened? Where am I? Can I move? Oh my gosh! I'm on the ground. I can sit. I can move my feet, and my legs and my arms. Oh my arm! My arm hurts.

You're bleeding. Your bleeding really bad.

I looked over and saw blood dripping down my arm from my shoulder. The skin was gone and gravel was embedded. It's going to suck scrubbing that out...

Boe was freaking out with confusion. He was so excited to be outside, but now I'm being surrounded by people. I remember watching him trying to figure out what to do. He wasn't sure if he should be playing or protecting, or enjoying some attention. I told him to chillax and he laid down.

I asked a neighbor to make sure my eyes were not shaking, and that my pupils were even. I was slightly dizzy, but nothing overly intense. I knew that my head was the first priority, the rest could be dealt with. Brain's bleeding and whatnot are no good, no matter the situation.

A neighbor helped me home, along with my children. I wanted to get in the shower as soon as possible. I needed to scrub the gravel out of the left side of my body (shoulder, hip, leg, arm), and there was so much surface area to deal with that I knew a shower would be easiest. Adrenaline stops pumping relatively quickly and it's more helpful to navigate extreme pain when it's still flooding the system.

I took off my helmet, and glanced down. The foam was shattered. It was still intact because the plastic pieces are glued to the foam, but the foam was completely broken. My neighbor said I heard your head hit the ground from inside my house. That's why I came out. Wow.

In the shower, as soon as the water hit, the adrenaline wore off. I screamed, I mean actually screamed. The pain was undefinable. I soaped up and scrubbed. I knew it was going to hurt. I also knew it had to be done. Infection is nothing to mess with. My kids ran for the first aid kit, so I could treat and dress the wounds after I got out.

When I got out of the shower, the pain in my arm surged. Trying to dry off and get dressed was practically impossible. I screamed through the entire ordeal. This was not the horrible skin pain of shredding off flesh, this was deeper... it was bone pain. I will deal with this after I address the bleeding...

I gauzed, wrapped, and bacitracin'd my cuts. Then I went to the arm. Can I move it? Can I touch it? Is this muscular or bone? It was here I discovered that my arm would not lift about a ninety degree angle. Crap... I might have to go to the ER...

The kids grabbed ice packs, while I elevated my arm. My head was starting to really hurt. I started sobbing. Not out of self pity. The pain was very intense. I called Chief, who told me to go to the ER. I argued, because that's my nature, but he was right so I went.

The triage nurse was concerned by how calm I was. In fact, she was quite concerned, especially given my head injury. The took me off to X ray very quickly. I screamed and cried through the entire experience. It was agonizingly painful. But I knew that when it was over, it'd be over.

I broke my arm on the tip of the radius. It's tiny, but it's leaking bone marrow tissue out into the surrounding tissue. No cast, because of the location of the break. Just a sling and ice. I can't take any pain medications because of the brain injury. Pain meds increase bleeding risks, so my body is navigating this injury all on its own.

Pain is powerful. My body is telling me it's hurt. It's telling me to slow down, rest, stop.

I'm alive.

No, I won't be riding with Boe anymore. I am not mad at him in any capacity. He's a dog and he was doing what dog's do. I just know it's not worth the risk. I'll have to come up with a new way to give him the joy of hard physical work, without risking my life. Anyone have a cart they'd care to share? ;)

I am in a decent amount of pain. But to be honest, this accident has filled my heart with joy. Why, you might be wondering? Because I didn't die. Seriously. If you saw my helmet, you would maybe understand. In that singular moment, if I had not had a helmet on, it could have been my brain on the pavement. The story could have ended with my children watching me die in the street. It could have been with a funeral, instead of a broken, painful arm. I'll take the arm. I'll take the extra days, minutes, hours, to tell my children how much I love them. I want the extra moments to share with them the things that I've learned, and the joy I feel in being their Mom. I want the extra days to kiss my husband and wake up in this beautiful life I am so fortunate to live.

I'm alive!

I celebrate life. I celebrate one more chance to pour out my life, my love, my heart into the world around me.

Our time is running out. It's the craziest thought, but it's immensely powerful. We have a limited number of unknown days on this planet, and our time is running out. There isn't enough time to share it all. There isn't enough time to love enough. There isn't enough time to say all I want to say...

I'm sitting here in my living room listening. I can hear my children building and creating lego cities. I can hear my body healing itself and demanding rest. I can feel the love of my husband pouring out from miles away. I feel joy. I feel gratitude. I'm alive.

Rumination Syndrome

My son was recently diagnosed with a very rare condition called Rumination Syndrome. To help to define the perimeters of how rare this condition is, there is no known treatment plan for a child of his age. If he was 12, it wouldn't be that complicated, but 5? Nope, nada, nil.

This inspired a phone call to the Mayo Clinic. You know how many children under the age of 10 they have treated with this condition? One. That's right folks, one child. And that child was 9, not five. 

To explain, Rumination Syndrome is where your body involuntarily regurgitates (or vomits) up your food. You have no pain, nausea, or feelings of discomfort. Your food just refuses to stay in your stomach. The result of this is malnutrition. You are essentially starving because your body won't keep food in your stomach long enough to digest it. 

My son is underweight and under-size. He is considered to be the size of a very small four year old. The belief is that it's because he's not getting adequate nutrition. It doesn't matter how much we feed him, it won't stay down.

He was diagnosed three years ago with another rare gastrointestinal syndrome called Gastroparesis. He was the youngest child that his Pediatric GI had ever seen with it. He was 2. This was discovered after he spent a month vomiting every.single.thing that went into his mouth. By the time he was hospitalized (yes it took a month because there was no consistency with physicians and they all kept saying he had a stomach "bug"), he couldn't lift his head. He looked skeletal. My two year old child had lost nearly 10 pounds. 

For the past year, the medications for Gastroparesis stopped working. His condition was getting worse again. We went in for our routine six month check, and his doctor became convinced something else was going on. After a plethora of tests, we discovered he no longer has Gastroparesis (YAY!), but he does have Rumination Syndrome.

Let me put it to you how our doctor put it to us:

Doc: He's got Rumination Syndrome.

Me: Okay. What do we do about it?

Doc: Well... I have NO idea.

Me: Huh?

Doc: This is astoundingly uncommon to see it in a five year old. This is something that we see with adolescents. It's associated with Bulimia and severe anxiety.

Me: Okay...

Doc: I have nothing more I can do. But I'm going to do some research, contact some colleagues, as I'm sure you're going to do as well. Lets communicate and see what we can come up with. 

Me: You've got it.

It's not very often that your specialist doctor is stumped!

Today I spent three hours pouring over medical reference texts, websites, and on the phone with treatment programs. The other day I spent three hours on the phone with the Pediatric Gastroenterology head nurse at the Mayo Clinic. We are submitting a request to see if they will take on my son's case.

This child has endured uncommon experiences from  the beginning of his life. He's a triplet, wasn't supposed to survive in utero, wasn't "supposed" to survive after birth. He wasn't "supposed" to be smart. He wasn't "supposed" to walk. He has overcome so many medical situations. He knows far too much about IV's, hospitals, nurses, and doctors. But you know what? This kid is a rock star. He is smart, funny, charming. He is loving and silly. He loves Star Wars and Star Trek and cars. He has a deep love for all people (young and old, male and female). He befriends almost everyone he meets, even if they're putting in IV's (he HATES IVs). He loves Legos and his sisters. He shouts out "THANK YOU!!!!" to every police officer, firefighter, paramedic, security guard, MP, etc that he sees, whether or not they can hear him. He has a passionate love for all things Army and Marines. He has conquered a thousand odds.

So here's one more thing for this amazing kiddo to conquer. And conquer it I know he will.