First off, I have to say something about "the hill". Last fall, one of the facebook neighborhood watch biddies decided to let the whole neighborhood know that Jane and her friends were bicycling down "the hill" at a reckless pace and turning the corner wide at the end. After that we grounded Jane from her bike for a week forbid her from going down "the hill" and told her she needed to take a safer route to her friends' house.
A few days ago, I was sitting at work, prepping for a meeting when Chris let me know that Jane had fallen off her bike and she was hurt... badly. Emily had been taking care of her and our angel neighbor had gotten her home.
The second we walked through the door, her first words were "I wasn't even going down the hill!"
It took almost 24 hours to break her and discover that she had been going down "the hill".
Two x-rays later Jane was diagnosed with a broken arm. In case you can't tell, it was the big arm, not the little arm. Punishment enough for disobeying.
I know having a broken arm is a rite of passage, but it's slightly more challenging for Jane, who has had to adapt.
The early days were rough. The first night she had a bad trip on Tylenol with codeine and ended up in the ER thinking she couldn't breathe. After determining that she could, in fact, breathe she was sent home.
The next day, the orthopedic doctor told us that she had broken her arm too near the shoulder to cast so she was going to have to be VERY careful and wear a sling for a month. She was very fortunate to have not had any displacement with the break. Since then, she has needed a lot of help. We've hired Emily as her home health care worker during the day and I take care of her needs in the evening. The pain is less every day. She says she's never riding her bike again. As much as I don't want to see her get hurt again, I hope that's not true. After all, she's a kid and kids ride bikes. Just not down "the hill".
