- 10:31 AM,
Saturday, January 17th, 2015:
-
- This is so shitty
and so embarrassing I'm gonna do something
I never do: lock this entry until I know she's
alright (or needs surgery) because I cannot believe
this happened.
-
- So there's a
toddler morning at a trampoline park in town called
SkyZone. $5 for your kid and parents are free so you
can, well, watch your kid. I have reservations about
rampolines for all ages, but 2 seems kinda nuts.
However, they have a dedicated 2-hour period for just
toddlers and there's really no place to fall. I'm sure
you can see where this is going...
-
- ...however the
truth is? We did it several times. And it was a blast
and Vienna loved the hell out of it. Toddlers are so
light that they can't do much damage and it's all one
huge flat surface. Took some video of Vienna and Talya
jumping in slow motion...
-
-
- The creepy effect
of the audio is now foreshadowing of what happened on
Thursday. (sigh)
-
- So I'm watching
Vienna and she's having me follow her. You take
special care to never jump in the same square they're
in (obviously), but I ended up jumping towards her as
she jumped back into my square at the same time. By
the time she got to where she thought the ground would
be? I was deep into the trampoline meaning she
fell a bit, and momentum sent the ground SHOOTING up
at the speed of my fat-ass completely buckling her
leg. Like, I'm the dad that lets my kids fall all over
the place... and this was really, really bad. The
ground speed was the equivalent of her jumping off a
fucking roof. She screamed like I had never heard
before, I picked her up and walked to Talya and
said as seriously as possible: "This is really
bad."
-
- We sit down and
they take a report, Vienna screams for a good 20
minutes all the way to the car. She cannot stand and
only the lack of weight on her knee in her car seat
gives her relief. We get home and spend the entire day
seeing if she can put any weight on it, and she can't
even come close. She wakes up 3 times screaming in
pain throughout the night complaining her knee hurts.
The next morning? Cannot stand.
-
- I believe
only parents can understand how absolutely bizarre
this is. Children, even with the craziest injuries,
can't be kept down. The hardest part of having a kid
with a bad injury is that they have so much energy
they don't care. She'd be fine, would want to go
outside to play, you set her down and she holds her
leg up and literally cannot put an ounce of weight on
it. After a full 24 hours with no improvement... we
had no choice - we had to take her to get an x-ray. I
believe having to get your 2-year-old an x-ray is the
first stamp on your
"HORRIBLE FUCKING PARENT" card. And all
I see in my head is my fat ass buckling her leg.
UGH.
-
- We go to get the
X-ray and she's pretty adorable at the hospital. They
want to weigh her but she can't put weight on her left
leg so she's holding it up and saying "Not working,
dada". Talk about breaking your heart. Hell even on
the way to there she kept saying "Skyzone?!?!
Skyzone?!?!" because she still wants to have fun and
jump and doesn't connect the fact that she can't
actually stand. So we get the x-ray and... oh yeah,
side note:
-
- The x-ray
technician asks me to take her shirt off.
Uhm...
-
- "For her
leg?"
-
- "No, this is a
chest x-ray."
-
- "No, it's an x-ray
of her leg."
-
- She walks into
another room...
-
- "Oh you're right,
leg x-ray."
-
- What the serious
fuck people. How do you allow your job to get so
commonplace that you don't understand the severity of
NOT KNOWING WHICH PATIENT YOU HAVE?
Fucking, fuck. She came back overly nice and talking
about how BEAUTIFUL the name Vienna was and how she
lived there and BLAH-buh-fucking-BLAH.
DO YOUR JOB. Especially dealing with minors
who might not always have their parents there to
correct you. UGGGGGGGGH.
-
- So the x-rays
showed swelling around the knee, but no obvious
fracture. The doctor looked at me, as seriously as she
could and said: "I cannot tell you there isn't
soft-tissue damage. That fluid shouldn't be
there."
-
- (sigh). So we're
referred to an orthopedic surgeon for an MRI. A 2 year
old. Getting a fucking MRI. It could still just be a
muscle sprain, she has since been able to stand
(today) but cannot actually WALK. So we go to our GP
Monday and hopefully we'll have an MRI by the end of
the week to rule out ligament damage. And my mind
can't even process the recovery for THAT. How do
you put a 2-year-old in a cast? The hardest thing is,
now that she can stand? We still have to keep her down
as much as possible (though she's taken to crawling)
because if she did stretch or tear that ligament...
she could fall and REALLY fuck it up. It's absolutely
nerve-racking and now Cameron can walk better than
her. UGH. I just want to get that MRI and know
she's OK in the worst way. I leave for San Diego
on another gig on Monday and won't be back until
Wednesday so hopefully our appointment is Thursday.
Unfucking real. Un, fucking, real.
-
- I know it's easy
to say "Duh, trampolines aren't for toddlers", but the
truth is - this was indeed a freak accident. It's that
whole double-bounce phenomenon where you can
sky-rocket your friend to the moon if you time it
right... and she just happened to jump in at the
perfect (or not so perfect) time and I just
crushed her. We had moments in the weeks before this
where we ended up in the same square and this
never happened. She loves it and even Cam was
jumping around the last time and having a blast. Since
it's all kids and parents it's actually quite safe -
so I don't want to bad mouth the place in the
least - but I guarantee you: I will
have the hardest time ever going back if she ends up
being ok in a couple weeks. I know we have to
face the fear but holy shit, I keep replaying that
"buckle" in my head...
GODDAMNIT MUST WE ALWAYS HURT OUR CHILDREN?!?!?!?!?
-
- Ugh. Keep us in
your thoughts.
-
- Adam
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