Dave's broken right hand and our first sledding outing

Last week on Saturday afternoon, Dave broke two bones in his right hand.  We headed out as a family to do some sledding, and Dave wanted to check out a new sledding hill that someone had suggested we try out.  Everybody stayed in the van and he walked over to this hill to "try it out" first to see if there was enough snow and a decent slope.  We all watched him climb to the top, he scoped out all the sides, and went down one side that was not visible to us in the van.  He came walking back in a lot of pain.  He said something was awfully painful in his right hand, and thought he had some joints dislocated or something.  He said he ran into a bumpy path on the way towards the bottom of the hill and slowed himself with his hands/feet, and his right hand must have collided with a rock and broken the bones.  He was in A LOT of pain, and said he had to get to a doctor.  We drove to the closest place I thought of, Urgent Care off Greenhill.  We had to wait a few minutes before he got taken back.  The kids and I ended up waiting in the waiting room for close to 2 hours total, as they had to call in someone to do an X Ray on his hand, then wait for a dr to see it.  The X ray discovered 2 metacarpal bones behind his 3rd and 4th finger snapped in two, it looked terrible.  They had given him a shot of pain reliever and splinted his hand in place so he found a bit of relief there.  The kids were doing OK waiting.  There was a TV playing Phineas and Ferb, a crazy weird cartoon, they were glued to it.  Not something I'd normally let them watch but I figured a couple hours was fine.  Vanessa was the most restless, it was her naptime, and we had counted on her falling asleep in her car seat while the rest of us went sledding.  I had thankfully remembered to pack a few snacks in the diaperbag, so she munched on those most of the time.  She was wearing zip up pajamas that were too long for her so she kept stumbling over the pajamas walking around.

The receptionist brought out some coloring pages and crayons, which Violet and Calvin really enjoyed.  They gave Calvin a Cars sheet and Bob the Builder page, and to Violet they gave 2 pages, one with butterflies and one with Rapunzel.  They both got super excited about their pages and began diligently coloring for 30 minutes.  I was thankful for those!

Dave was in and out of the doctor's rooms, finding more relief as time went on since the shot to help with the pain became more effective.  His right hand was swollen up pretty big.

We left after he had a Rx for Vicodin, and left with instructions to get in contact with an orthopedic surgeon on Monday.

The rest of Saturday was pretty fun, however....we ended up going sledding anyway.  Dave was in pain, but didn't see the point in staying home and sitting in a chair all day, he was the one who suggested we try sledding again at a different hill, one we've been to before and knew well.  He stayed in the van while Vanessa took a late afternoon snooze in her car seat, and I went up and down the hills with Violet and Calvin.  The sledding hill on Fletcher is pretty tame, decently easy to climb, and just enough fun for the kids to enjoy sledding for a couple hours.  I helped Calvin carry up his sled each time, so it became a GOOD workout for me.  Violet could do her own 90% of the time, 10% of the time she wimped out and wanted help.

They enjoyed themselves so much.  It got dark out and the streetlight nearby lit up the whole sledding hill so we continued to sled until they were tired and hungry.  Vanessa had woken up and wanted out, so we called it quits around 6 pm. 

Dave is functioning OK.  He saw a surgeon Monday, went for a full physical to his regular doc on Tuesday (for the anesthesiologist's comfort level), and is scheduled for surgery tomorrow morning (Thurs) at 11 am to put pins in his bones to get them back in place. 

He is pretty frustrated that he can't work as effectively as he used to ~ he can not type, he can't use his right hand to use the mouse on his computer, so working for him is very, very difficult.  He got a software that converts voice to text on his computer so hopefully once he gets the hang of it he will be moving quicker, but its a learning process.

Someone called us up from Bethany and is bringing us chicken noodle soup, corn, and dessert for dinner tomorrow night, how kind!

Pics from the day:


In the waiting room...coloring away.

 A view from the top of the hill, that's Violet on the sled.

 Dave and his busted hand watching from the van:

 Violet made it up the hill on her own most of the time!

I tried uploading some videos but it kept stalling out, I'll try on another post.