No Helmet, No Problem

As you no doubt have heard, Claire broke her collarbone on Sunday.  Here she is wearing her sling for the first time, in the ER.

This happened while we were in Michigan, at Ellen's house. All four kids were playing outside, and Claire was riding on Mia's tiny little bike with training wheels. The kids apparently decided to tie a rope from Carter and Mia's battery-powered Jeep onto Claire's bike, to "tow" her. Then of course, they took a sharp turn, and off Claire went!

Her screaming after she fell didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary for her at first, but when she wouldn't stop screaming after several minutes, I started to worry. The worst part was that she kept yelling, "My neck! My neck!" when I asked her what hurts. If she hadn't been up and walking around while she said that, I probably would have been calling Flight for Life!

Grandpa J. was at Ellen's at the time, and he was trying to comfort her, but the poor kid literally was lying across his lap and literally wouldn't lift her head, even to watch Dora. That's when we decided we better take her somewhere.

Our first stop was at an urgent care center near Ellen's house. The clinic didn't open until 1 p.m. on Sundays, and we were among about 5 people who were literally waiting in the parking lot when they unlocked the doors. It still took about an hour for us to get in to see the doctor. Here's Claire waiting at the urgent care.

They got us in for some x-rays. Even before the x-rays were taken, the doctor told us his biggest concern was that Claire could have punctured a lung, because "that often happens with a broken clavicle." We were pretty horrified by that possibility! Then, sure enough, when the doctor brought us back to look at the x-ray, he pointed out what he said was a "very small lung puncture". I couldn't see what he was talking about, but of course I'm no x-ray technician. Due to this lung puncture, the doctor recommended we go right to Children's Hospital.

Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids is a great place. They got us right in and everybody was extremely, remarkably nice. The E.R. doctor who met with us immediately questioned this punctured-lung business. He said he that is "not something that normally happens with broken clavicles"—exactly the opposite of what the Urgent Care doctor had said.

Another round of x-rays and about 4 hours later, we had confirmation that the Urgent Care doctor had no idea what he was talking about: There was no punctured lung, and everybody at Children's was mystified as to why he would have thought that. We were so relieved! Honestly, a broken collarbone didn't seem all that bad compared to a broken collarbone and a punctured lung. And I guess I shouldn't be surprised that somebody who's working at an Urgent Care center on a Sunday might not have been at the top of his class in med school.

The Children's orthopedic person was nice, but remarkably blasé about the broken collarbone. She said it would take 3 to 6 weeks to heal, but that it would only "bother her" for about 5 days. (We went home with a prescription for pain meds anyway.) They gave her a little sling, and that was that! Most of our 5-hour wait at Children's was sitting around waiting for the radiologist to look at Claire's x-rays to make absolutely sure there was no punctured long. So thanks again, incompetent Urgent Care doc!

While we were waiting, we watched the Olympics while Claire laid there and stared into space, thanks to some excellent pain medication. We also got a visit from a Michigan "Safe Kids" representative, who was there to lecture us on the fact that Claire wasn't wearing a helmet when she fell. But amusingly, the minute she heard we didn't live in Michigan, she lost all interest in us and was out of there! I think we managed to avoid the majority of the lecture. : )

So here's Claire, all fixed up and ready for discharge from Children's. In her hand is a little plastic turtle they gave her for being good during x-rays. She was very attached to that turtle for a while after the incident! The turtle is purple (matching Claire's fingernails), and a drug-addled Claire named the turtle very creatively as "Purple."

She has been such a good little trooper this week, dealing with the injury.  If you ask her how she hurt her herself, she says "I fell off a bike!" and beams very proudly as if it were a desirable achievement.