I can’t tell you how many times this past year, month, week I’ve uttered the words, “Do you know we’ve never taken our kids to Emerge before?” Sometimes I tell random strangers, others it would just be me and the Xbox microphone. We were the envy of parents who had developed bed sores from sitting in hospital waiting rooms and undergoing therapy for what they observed during their stay while we sipped champagne and enjoyed couples massages.
Today I got a call from my daughter’s school suggesting we might want to come and take a look at her arm as she had fallen while doing a cartwheel on the playground. I would like to say she was attempting a double back tuck while the crowd cheered and she took her place on the make-shift podium built entirely from kid’s snow-pants but this time, it was the cartwheel that got the better of her.
A few things I learned while waiting in triage. I learned triage means “to sit for a very long time while people who come in after you will always take priority.”
I learned nobody looks like George Clooney within a ten mile radius of the building.
Hanna was in great spirits. In part because being in a hospital, she knew she was one step closer to her dream of having crutches. She even asked if her arm was broken, could she get crutches? I can’t think of a more bizarre conversation except the one we had when just prior to her being x-rayed, she asked if we were in the room where they cut arms off.
When I explained they do not cut off arms and confirmed there was no way I would let anyone cut off her arm she blurted out, “Well what about Terry Fox’s leg?” which could have only been topped if she had called him Terry The Fox.
Always bring a baby doll with you while waiting in an Emergency Waiting Room. Babies will always get bumped to the front of the line—always. At one point I made a cooing sound and three nurses dropped their clipboards to trace the source.
Hanna got a little nervous when she read the sign, “Please Don’t Steal the Chairs.” I just laughed and planted mine firmly back on the floor.
I tried to call Greg to update him on how things were going but my brand new phone had somehow been set to “Airplane mode” and I had no idea how to turn it off and set it to “Death By Waiting mode.” I know Hanna was still talking as I dialed the phone for the twentieth time only to get the flashing message, “Please turn off airplane mode,” but her words were muffled by the sound of my Dad’s voice in my head asking, “How long have you been slow?”
It might seem strange but Hanna and I had a few quiet hours of rare Mommy-Daughter time and all things considered it was pretty great. Without the t.v., homework, sports, life getting in the way, we had four solid hours of actual talking.
We laughed, we hugged, we feared for the guy whose hands never left the inside of his sweatpants who only stopped groaning long enough to inhale.
Sometimes when you least expect it, in this case, during the biggest injury any one of our kids has ever faced, we find opportunities to grow even closer.
Hanna’s arm is in a sling. She chipped a bone on her elbow. We will see a bone specialist at Dr. Chang’s Bone Clinic which you might think sounds more like a wing and noodle joint but I was assured was a real place, within the next week to determine the severity of the chip.
In any case, she will not be able to use her new crutches.
It was a good day.
