Life Changes Quickly

It started out as a typical Tuesday. I got the boys off to school, got myself ready to go, and headed up to the food pantry.

I run a food pantry on Tuesdays and am there most of the day. It was a very busy day with lots of clients coming in that needed food and clothing. We even had a family of 10 that had fled from Hurricaine Harvey in Texas.

To say I am exhausted on a Tuesday afternoon is an understatement. Being on my feet on that hard floor most of the day is physically exhausting. Talking with the families that we serve is mentally exhausting. I wouldn’t trade it or give it up. It is a very rewarding thing and I was called to serve, as we all were.

That evening Jacob had a home soccer game. It was against a rival town not too far away. There was a player on the other team that was playing pretty rough and fouling kids, even though the ref wasn’t calling all of them.

Jacob was taking the ball down the field when this kid came in behind him and took his legs out. Jacob didn’t see him & it caught him off guard. Instead of his normal forward roll, he fell face first and caught himself with his left hand.

Next thing we knew, Jacob was laying on his back crying in agony. He isn’t a crier so I knew things weren’t good. Last year he broke his pelvis during a game. The injury was obvious as soon as I saw his arm with the visual deformity.

The trainer got his arm stabilized and I loaded him up in the car, headed to the emergency room. It was about a 40-45 min drive but I was pushing those limits quite a bit.

We were only 15 minutes into the drive when the adrenaline wore off and the pain set in. Things got a little scary. Jacob was hyperventilating and I couldn’t calm him down. He was pale, was tingling all over, his muscles were contracting, and joints were locking up. He kept telling me he was fading and he felt like he was going to pass out. He said he was going down.

I made those last 10 miles in record time, thankful there wasn’t traffic. Upon arrival at the ER, I rushed inside to get someone to help get him inside. Things moved quickly after that. They quickly got him on a heart monitor (he has heart problems), pulse ox, got an IV in, and gave him a large dose of pain medication.

As a former ICU nurse, I was much more at ease when he was hooked up to the monitor and had some pain medicine.

He then endured the standard X-rays which revealed a fractured distal radius (through his growth plate), and an ulnar styloid fracture. He needed a reduction that night. This meant some Ketamine for conscious sedation.

The link to my Vlog is below. Check that out to see how he looked when he first got to the ER. You can also smile at his silliness when waking up from the sedation.

Things sure change quickly. As a senior in high school, his soccer career is now over. He will spend the rest of the season on the sidelines. With all the tragedies happening right now, we just have a 6 week or so inconvenience. We just have to regroup as I now have to drive him everywhere again. There are many fall things he had scheduled that he will no longer be able to do. Many classes at school that are going to be impossible.

It could always be worse. I’m thankful that I was that crazy mom that takes clips of videos at all his games. I didn’t wait for that one game later. You never know when there is a later. You have to live in the moment and enjoy those memories as you make them.

Check the Vlog: