Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall

Our poor little girl broke her arm. Katherine was in her room and we heard a bang then a cry. Jason had just gotten home from the office about 5 minutes before, so he made it to her room first since I was downstairs. He told me she broke her arm and to get his shoes. The whole time I was wondering how he could know it was broken, then thought it was just from having friends with broken arms. He got her in the car and into the hospital in about 5 minutes. We are so lucky to live right by the hospital. I called my parents then asked my neighbor to come over (Abby was asleep) until my parents got there.

I’ve said this before, but I want to state again how much I love Emory Johns Creek Hospital. They called her back pretty quickly after I got there; we barely had to wait. The staff was so amazing with her, making her feel better and treating her with such kindness. They gave her a shot of morphine quickly, THANKFULLY, which really helped. I also am so grateful Jason was home because Kate was never alone during the whole ordeal because we were both there. You really needed two parents with her. They kicked me out whenever they did an x-ray because I was pregnant, but she had Jason. Other times one of us had to fill our paperwork or go get the car or park the car…

One funny part was when I got to Emory the nurse pulled me aside to fill out paperwork and said, “I think Daddy was a little nervous.” She asked him to put in Kate’s information and instead he filled it out with his name, birthdate, weight… :)

When the Dr pulled her sleeve up, first time I actually saw her arm, I understood why it was obvious to Jason. It was literally bent. Poor thing :( They confirmed there were two broken bones but luckily no growth plates were involved. (I didn’t even know about growth plates before this) They recommended we take her to Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital to set it since we would have to follow up with them anyway. They splinted her arm, put it in a sling, and gave us towels and ice for the car ride; we declined riding in an ambulance…

Scottish Rite is a great hospital, but it’s big and busy. I am beyond thankful we went to Emory first where they quickly got her medicated and x-rayed. I can’t imagine if we had to do all that at Scottish Rite and how long it would have taken.

Kate was amazing during all this, such a trooper. She’s always been a tough little girl and just so sweet. Everyone LOVED her and was so nice and great with her. She told one nurse she didn’t think it was broken since she never heard a crack! She made sure she kept her ice on and was very patient during the LONG day.

By far the worst part was (1) when they put the IV in. It wouldn’t go in her hand so they did it again in her arm. I had to physically restrain her and it was really painful for her so she was crying and screaming. I also hated how they much they had to mess with her and how much equipment they put on her, mainly because of how much she hated it. (2) How brave she was being. It’s almost sadder when they’re not crying and acting so strong and look at you with bloodshot eyes and say “I want to go home, can we please go home?” It was a horrible day and so sad and I couldn’t wait to get her home and wanted her to feel all better.

They thankfully sedated her to set the bones. She went out immediately; I double checked to make sure that was normal. The setting and casting only took 15 minutes. It was a clean break and they said it was easy to fix and there shouldn’t be any issues. When she first woke up, right when we came back in the room, she would babble then fall back asleep. They gave her a popsicle to help wake up and as I was feeding it to her she would say, “Mmmmm, yummy.” Then they took the IV out (hurt again) and she was drugged up watching a movie and told us she wanted to stay and watch movies all night!

We finally left the hospital at 9PM. This all started when she fell at 2:45PM. We had to find an open pharmacy with her medicine and get her some McDonalds, her choice, so we got home a little after 10.



Emory Johns Creek. Morphine had kicked in but it was still hurting her. They had to cut her shirt to get a good image of her arm.


Scottish Rite. Still waiting but about to be called back into the room. Eyes are starting to have the bloodshot look :(


At home with her purple cast that she picked out :)