All week I have been sub-consciously preparing for an extremity. It started three nights ago when in the dead of night Tommy woke up screaming bloody murder and grabbing his side. I was sure it was an appendicitis attack and was trying to decide if I should call 911 or just the hospital number (I was a bit delusional at that time of night) until I realized that he had just peed the bed and that his scrapes on his tummy (from attempting to climb a tree) were hurting from that.
Two nights ago James and I were awakened by the most incredibly close and frightful lightning storm that I have ever seen. It was like someone with a giant light switch was turning it on and off many times in a row for what seemed like a very long time. Maybe 20 minutes! I have never seen that much constant lightning. It was like the grand finale in the stadium of fire! I had many visions of the tree beside our bedroom being hit by lightning and starting a fire from which none of us could escape. I think I must have fallen asleep planning our escape route and which children we would each have to carry.
Yesterday when I heard Ryrie's bloodcurdling cries I knew something serious had happened. I was upstairs nursing George and oblivious to what the boys were doing. They were playing in our neighbor's backyard and trying to climb her trees and her dangerously high slide and playing on her trampoline. Ryrie was trying to grab the treebranch while jumping on the tramp and fell off, landing awkwardly on his wrist and arm. His crying was pretty scary. He wouldn't stop until the babysitter came (for the other kids) and then he stopped just out of embarrassment, not because the pain subsided. I started to think that maybe we had rushed things by getting to the hospital too soon, but my fears were confirmed when the doctor announced it was broken. Ryrie was very brave in the face of the unknown--he feared needles and was worrying about how he would sleep at night on his cast--and I tried to calm him as much as I could since I have never had this experience!
When we came home he drew a sweet picture of himself sitting on the hospital bed with a cast on. He wrote at the top: "Today I broke my arm. It hurt." :-(
Oh no! How scary! The dreaded broken bone. I'm glad he was so brave about it. And I guess I'm glad none of your other imagined calamities came to pass. Still, what a rotten week. Having to stress out about bad things happening before they actually do happen??! Not fair.
ReplyDeleteWe've had some crazy lightening and thunder storms around here the last couple of days. I love them! But I can imagine how frightening they can be when you're worried about fire and kids too.
ReplyDeleteSooorrry Ry!