The Memory Family: Kirsten's very BAD day!!

September 16th was a typical day. I had a very bad head cold and was counting down the hours until I could put myself to bed. Kirsten had her very first tumbling class here in Dallas since our move. It was actually a trial class. It was a late class from 7:30 to 8:30pm. She is a level 4 tumbler (she is working on a layout and a full). So, I was there watching her and I had a feeling that something wasn't right. Kirsten had been tumbling on the hard ground in our yard for the past few weeks. I noticed that on the bouncy tumbling floor that she was catching a lot of air. Her back tucks were high off the ground. She also forgot to wear her tumbling shoes and was in her bare feet. There were only like 20 minutes left of her class when she fell in the middle of a tumbling pass. She did a round off back handspring back handspring and was about to go into a back tuck, when she decided she wasn't ready for the tuck. She fell back pretty hard on her right elbow. I saw it happen and I was worried but I sat still thinking she would just get back up. She went to get up when her coach told her to lay back down. That was when I got worried. I thought that she hurt her back. Then they called for me to come out there. Oh GREAT!!!!!

Kirsten was definitely in shock. Her coach pulled me aside and told me that he thought her elbow was out of place and that we should not move her but call an ambulance. I don't know how but I stayed calm. I was freaking out in my head but trying to keep Kirsten as calm as I could. Kirsten didn't even cry initially.

Once we got on the ambulance she started getting pretty upset. That ambulance ride was very bumpy and I thought we both might get sick. Not fun.

By the time we got to the hospital, Kirsten was in intense pain! They gave her an IV w/ morphine. She was scared to death about the IV. She has never been hurt like this before. Lots of new scary experiences. Brian met us at the hospital. Still at this point we thought she had a dislocated elbow. We thought this will be no big deal. Pop it back in place and we will be on our way. Not so. She got her x-ray (which caused her tons more pain). The Dr. pulled us out of the room to look at the x-ray. (I wish I had a copy of it). It was broken very bad at the elbow. He said that she needed surgery tonight to put two pins in place. (By this time it was already like 11pm). The surgeon came in and comforted us all. He said that there were 2 other surgeries in front of us. By the time she went into surgery it was 2am. Brian and I were zombies. We were so worried about her. We have never had any surgeries in our little family. Kirsten was also very very distraught. She seriously thought she was going to die. It was so sad.

She made it through the surgery just fine. They actually admitted us to the hospital that night because she was so young. We did get to go home the next morning about 11am.

I actually thought that she would be in a cast for like 8-10 weeks. She was in a very FAT soft cast for 5 days. To allow for swelling. Then they put a hard cast on. She got her cast off and pins out only three weeks after surgery. Now, she is just working on getting her arm to function again. Because it is at the joint, it will take months for her to have full use and rotation of her arm. She still can't touch her hand to her shoulder.

This has been very hard for her because she is so active. She is having a difficult time dealing with the fact that she can't tumble for a while. I am pretty sure that she will tumble again but she is very discouraged. She thinks that she won't remember how to do it. She is a silly girl . Sorry about the long detailed story. Enjoy the pictures.......