superRelish

Alexander and the No Good, Horrible, Very Bad Day

Well Thursday started just like any other day, I got up and got ready for school and had enough time to watch a bit of telly before we went to school.  Nothing unusual at all.  Everything stayed normal until snack time, then after a snack it was time to go out for a play and that was when it started to go wrong.  I played in the back park and slipped on the fort.  Instead of landing in motor bike like I learnt at circus, I was so off balance that I landed on my arm.  I don't remember too much about what happened next, but I think my friend Nathan walked to the sick bay with me.  The people in the office got a bit of a fright when they saw me - I was really upset and my arm looked a little strange, so they called mum to come and get me.  

When mum (finally) arrived, she took one look at me and decided that I needed to go to the hospital.  I really didn't want to go in an ambulance, so mum promised to drive me there.  Even though she drove really carefully and slowly, I found out that there were far too many bumps in the road between school and the Royal Children's Hospital.

When we made it to the hospital, they got a special chair for me and pushed me into a room to rest.  Lots of different doctors and nurses came to check on me.  They gave me two different types of medicine to make it stop hurting, but they didn't work very well.  Then they put a straw into my arm so that they could give me some more medicine.  Even though the needle that put the straw into my arm hurt, the medicine was really good and it made the pain go away.  They put some plaster and a bandage on my arm to keep it still so that I could keep relaxing.

Finally I went and had an xray of my arm.  I didn't get to see the photos, but mum said that they were really awesome - the end of my humerus, that is the bone just above my elbow had snapped off completely.  I had to wait for the orthopedic surgeon to come and talk to me.  He told me that I had to have an operation to join my arm bones back together, and maybe they would pin the bones back together.  I didn't mind waiting or an operation, the bad part was not being allowed to eat or drink anything until AFTER the operation.  There was really nothing to do other than sleep!

Just before 7 o'clock, they drove my bed upstairs, it was almost my time for theatre.  I was really scared, but the doctors and the nurses were really good and told me all about what they were going to do and explained that I would have some special sleepy medicine to make sure I stayed asleep.  

Mum was allowed to come into the start of the surgery, into the room where they gave me the sleepy medicine.  I really can't remember anything other than mum holding my hand and brushing my hair out of my eyes.  Apparently I was in surgery for almost 3 hours.  I had a condylar fracture of my humerus and they had to cut open my arm to fix it.  They used two meccano screws to join my humerus back together.  The doctors found that my elbow was dislocated and that even if the bone was joined back together, it wasn't in the right place and they needed to move it to the right place and then put all my muscles and tendons back where they should be.  

When I was taken off the sleepy medicine and taken from the theatre, I didn't want to wake up.  The nurses, mum and dad couldn't wake me up, even when dad was decorating my head with chips or tissues or dripping water on my head - I was just too tired.  Eventually the recovery nurses decided that I wasn't going to wake up so they moved me to my new bedroom on 4 Main.  

When I eventually did wake up, I was starving.  I didn't care that it was only 3 in the morning, I needed food.  I had fruit salad, yoghurt and jelly before I went back to sleep!  I didn't sleep for too long and I wanted more food.

I didn't have much fun in hospital.  The nurses and doctors were all really nice, but I didn't want to be there.  It was especially horrible when the other kids in my bedroom got to go home but I had to stay there another night.

Finally, after 2 nights in hospital and almost 48 hours, I could finally go home.  I am still really tired and sore but feeling much happier now that I am home.  Lots of people have already come to visit me - Nanny Pat, (Nanny Bette), Elba and of course Aunty Sharn and Ellen and they all love me so much that they have given me lots of new books, toys and sweets, so it is not all bad. 

I think that I will even get a few more days off school, 

Love AJ Pickle

Here are a few photos from my days in hospital...