Ruth's Arm

 This beautiful little girl has had a rough week. Last Tuesday she fell off the woolly mammoth tusk at Fossil Creek park, about 4-5 feet high, and broke off the ball of her right humerus. (Ruth is left handed) I saw it happen about twenty feet away from where I was sitting and rushed over when I heard her painful cry. It looked disfigured from the outside so I knew it was bad. I whistled for all of the children to get into the car "NOW" and to their credit there were all eight of us in the van in less than sixty seconds, including a newborn Rockwell. David even managed to pick up Ruth's sandals on his way out, bless his heart. I called Zach from the van and thankfully he had just gotten out of classes for the day at 12 pm so he said he would meet me at the hospital. I dropped Ruth off with Gabe at the ER entrance and Zach showed up about five minutes later.  She did go through a bit of shock and fell asleep after Zach gave her a blessing, but when she woke up she seemed in a more stable condition. Since the bone splintered the hospital staff splinted her arm and until the surgeon could get there at 3:00pm when they put her under for surgery. He ended up putting three pins in to hold the bone together and she came back with this big cheese block for extra protection. My loving husband spent the better part of 5 hours in the ER with Ruth in a terrible de ja vu from 2 1/2 years ago when she broke her arm the last time. Ruth just recovered from a bone chip off her left elbow last month from a fall out of a tree from about the same hight! This is not a good trend. Perhaps we should have a no-climbing rule for the next few years. I hope it doesn't indicate something wrong with her bone health, but the doctor says we can't even test until she is all healed. 

The day after she got home Ruth was understandably depressed in spirit from the severe limitations to her activities, but the older boys were so good to play card games with her and Lincoln and Alana even brought down some dolls. She is a little bit more active every day and no longer hangs out on the couch. We had some very loving friends bring dinner over one night, Adriane brought over a treat a game and a neat coloring pad, and her friend down the street Lucy, brought over a card and some purple nail polish. She felt loved. Ruth had a hard cast put on six days after the accident and she was hopeful that she would be able to go swimming, but alas it is not meant to be since the pins are an open wound which could get infected. They will check her arm in three weeks right before we are supposed to travel to the east coast to visit both sets of grandparents.  I hope it is doing well enough by then that they can take the pins out but we shall see.