If you have been following my post, you will know that I am having to walk the dogs about 4 times a day. We have a little schedule worked out and it seems that the other dog owners who "share" the park with me have their schedule too so this helps us avoid each others dogs. I take Morgan and Einstein for their walks around 5:30 a.m. (don't groan, I'm a morning person!), 10:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m. and their last walk about 8:00 p.m. They are able to "hold it" longer if we aren't here to take them, but if I am home, this is our schedule.
The other morning I had some errands I wanted to run. I wanted to start early, so I decided to take them for a walk at 9:00 a.m. rather than 10:00 a.m. In seems that the people 2 floors below us with the large, black un-neutered male lab take him out for his walk around this time. Something I did not know! So as we rounded the corner to head down the hill to the park, we came face to face with him and his owner. Needless to say, everyone was surprised!
Morgan, being the ever-friendly dumb lab, leaps forward to greet them. Einstein, with her irrational belief that she is a bad-ass, charges the dog. Now, this is all happening in a split second but for some reason my cat-like reflexes (ha ha) don't work as fast. The lab's owner pulls his dog across the street but not before my dogs have run me into the metal fence that lines the sidewalk. Since they had already turned the corner, but I had not, my left arm took the brunt of the force.
I regroup and pull them back towards the apartment. All the while, the neighbor and his dog are standing calmly on the other side of the street, watching. Oh, the horror! Then to make a bad situation worse, bad-ass Einstein, hopped up on doggie adrenaline, decides to take on Morgan. Now my dogs are scuffling in the doorway, the neighbor is watching and all I want to do is hide. I finally get them inside and back up the apartment, check for injuries and shoot nasty stink-eyes and lots of "bad dogs" at them.
The dogs were fine apart from one small bite on Einstein's leg (serves you right, bad-ass - NOT). Then I checked my arm. Apart from being scraped up, the bones seemed okay. Put ice on it and shot more stink eyes at the dogs.
All this happened about a week ago. So this is the end result.
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| Nice bruise, huh!?! |
I have noted on this blog about my concerns about being car-less and the kids in school across town. So we have leased a car, however we aren't going to be able to pick it up until our temporary residence cards arrive (new wrinkle in the plan). Hopefully we will get the cards by Monday and still be able to pick up the car on Tuesday, 4/12/11 as originally planned. But right now, I remain carless and at the mercy of public transportation.
So yesterday I got the call. The school nurse was calling to inform me that Samantha had collided with another student playing soccer in P.E. and landed on her elbow. The school, thankfully, does have a registered nurse so she had placed ice on it but was concerned because of the amount of pain she was still having after 20 minutes. So my options are running through my head the whole time she is talking: (1) take the tram/Metro/bus, (2) take a taxi, (3) call Patrick.
Since I was going to call Patrick first anyway to tell him about Samantha, I thought that maybe someone at his work could drive him to the kid's school or loan him a car. Thankfully, his co-worker, Lorraine, was at work and came to our rescue again! (Lorraine was the one who drove Patrick to my rescue with my first grocery store debacle!) She drove him to the school to get Samantha and then took them to the train station. There is a a Metro stop in Saint Cloud across the street from the hospital and the hospital is within walking distance to our apartment (all lucky coincidences).
Patrick and Sam reach the hospital about 3:00 and I meet them there at 3:30. Samantha is waiting to be x-rayed. She was being a trooper and only had a few tears. She got her x-rays and was going back up to see the doctor with Patrick. Now, it's time to meet the bus with Max. Another stroke of luck, the bus stop is right in front of the hospital! I retrieve Max and he wants to see his sister (sweet of him!). I text Patrick and he says they are done and coming out, so we wait and meet them and all walk home.
They told Patrick that there was no "obvious fracture", but they would have the radiologist look at it. Okay, I have been in the ortho field a long time and all her symptoms were classic for an elbow fracture, but I don't claim to have x-ray vision, so I let it go.......They had also given us a prescription for pain medicine that we needed to fill. I was getting ready to leave and go to the pharmacy when the phone rang. We had been home about 10 minutes. It was the hospital saying that the radiologist had looked at the x-ray and determined that "yes, there was a fracture" in her elbow. (Told you so, na na na na boo boo!) So Patrick walks her back to the hospital. Now she is in a half-cast and has a return appointment in two weeks.
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| Sam - the brave trooper |
I miss my job and my friends at Cary Orthopaedics even more today than I usually do!
Last night was a little difficult getting her comfortable in bed and the "pain" medication they gave me is nothing more than 500mg of acetaminophen. She finally found a good position on the couch about 11:00 p.m. As you can see from the picture, it is her left arm and of course she is left-handed! But Spring Break starts Monday and they are out of school until 4/26/11, so I guess the timing was good if it had to happen! She did go to school today, but hey, what kid wouldn't love to show off their "war wound"!
As I stated in the beginning, we are fine now. A little sore, but we are some tough chicks!
I guess France has decided to beat you all up! Glad to hear everyone is recovering well though!
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