The Arm, part one.

It was a dark and stormy night...

Haha. Nope. Just kidding. It was a bright sunny day.

I would like to preface this story with the statement that you may go through tough things, trauma of all sorts. Life sort of ensures that. While we can wonder at the 'why me' or 'where was God,' the reality is He doesn't say that he will keep us from experiencing those things, but, and what I and my family felt, was that HE, indeed, is present during those times. There are lots of parts to this story, small seemingly insignificant moments, easily overlooked, that show that He was there for us.

So back to this bright sunny day.

A few years ago, my parents decided to start a new family tradition of "Picnic in the Park" family dinners. Since my brother and I both live in the same town, both have kids, and I conveniently live across the street from a park, they thought we could have a get together where they would come to us. The kids are entertained by the jungle gyms and swings, the adults get to talk, and no one has to clean their house. Win win. 

It was our first one of the season. My dad was grilling, my brother watching, (younger brother couldn't come) and mom, my sister-in-law and I were chatting. The kids were all playing except for the big boys who were riding their bikes around in the street. I had only been there about 15-20 minutes when I heard some commotion, saw my brother start jogging and looked over to see that George had fallen off his bike. He was getting up, holding his arm. At first I thought he was looking at his elbow, thinking maybe he scraped it. I also started to jog towards him, and during that I saw that his arm was flopping in a rather unnatural fashion. 

Oh crap. I just knew he had broken it. There was no denying it, even from a few hundred feet away. The panic started to rise, and my heart was beating fast. As he got to me, my brother and I both saw that not only did he break his arm, but the bone was sticking out. 

Oh, gees. Deep breath. Panic... panic... now what? My mind was racing. Poor kid was screaming, more in a frantic nature, and kept saying, "Am I going to have to have a shot? Will I have to get stitches/" You almost want to laugh at this. Least of your worries, my dear. I did my best to stay calm and just say, I'm not sure, but we'll get it taken care of.

Meanwhile, my mind is still racing, and freaking, thoughts stumbling over each other. I strangely asked, "Do I have to take him to the hospital?" My family looked at me like I was stupid or crazy or both, and said, "Uh, yeah. He needs to go to the hospital for this." Later, when I thought about it, what I meant was, "Do *I* take him, or do I call 911?" I got a little laugh out of that one. The looks on their faces. lol

My brother and I helped George hold his arm and walk across the park to my house. The girls kept coming up to me and I just kept telling them, Go to Grammie. I didn't want them to see his arm and be freaked out. I told my brother to go yell up the stairs to Kong, who was sleeping and would be getting up to go to work shortly, that George broke his arm, and then to go get a towel from the bathroom to wrap around the arm to help stabilize it. Poor hubby. What a way to wake up, especially for someone who doesn't handle trauma very well. Later he told me that he even just stood at the top of the stairs, dazed, saying to himself, "I don't know if I can go down there."

My mom brought an ice pack from her cooler, and we put that and a towel around his arm, set it on a pillow, and then on a cookie sheet to stabilize the pillow. I quickly called the ER to let them know we were coming so they could be expecting us and so that we wouldn't have to wait or explain too much. Not that a bone sticking out isn't explanation enough. 

My mind was racing as to what all I should bring, what to tell my mom to do, and then off we went.