Yesterday was a busy day - Sundays usually are...I was at rehearsal for Carnegie Hall from 2-5pm. Dan was busy playing football with Michael, Steven, and a whole group of parents and students at CCL. I got home from rehearsal and was just getting ready to join the boys at CCL for The Stand (student-led church service) when Dan came in the side door, announcing that Steven broke his arm. Now, knowing Dan as well as I do, I was 100% certain that he was just joking. For one thing, Steven already broke his arm once this year - in April (I think). He was playing basketball and tripped over a kid and fell dead weight on his left arm, breaking the radius. 6 weeks later, the cast was off and he was as good as new. For another thing, we just changed health insurance companies. Our new monthly insurance payment is 50% less than our old payment...we barely sent in the 1st payment on Nov. 1 and received our insurance cards this week. And one last thing, they were playing touch football, not tackle. How could he possibly be hurt?????
The following pictures were taken with my camera phone - they are pretty poor quality...I thought I had my camera with me in my purse, but Alyssa borrowed it at church this morning and forgot to give it back.
Well, Dan was not exaggerating or joking. He started digging frantically through the mail pile, searching for the brand new insurance cards. I grabbed my purse and phone and headed to the car. We went to Scottsdale Osborn Hospital. It was a great experience. Steven was registered, triaged and in a room within 15 minutes. He had an IV, ice pack, pillows, and a staff of nurses attending to him less than 2 minutes after settling into the bed. His favorite part of the entire experience, other than the TV mounted on a telescoping arm, was when they cut his clothes off of him. They gave him a little bit of morphine, took numerous x-rays, and monitored his vital signs until the orthopedic surgeon (they actually had an orthopedic guy on call in trauma) finished surgery and came to check on Steven. The x-rays showed that he needed to "reduce" the fracture - this means they manipulated the bones into better alignment then put a humongous temporary cast on his arm to keep it all in place 'til his follow-up visit next week. I have a feeling this procedure was pretty painful - they gave Steven an amnesia drug so he would feel & remember absolutely nothing about it. The surgeon was amazing. He's a fracture specialist, trained at Yale and abroad, numerous awards, and very professional, personable bedside manner. The attending ER physician was also fantastic as was nurse Sarah. Greatly exceeded my ER expectations.
Steven's friend Matt came with his dad to visit. He brought Steven a cool glow stick which Steven kept in the pocket of his hospital gown. His chest glowed bright red and green for 3 hours. Steven sent out a little text message to everyone on his contact list and received about 12 text messages back within about 3 minutes. Lydon and his dad came to visit today. They brought Starburst and funny stories.
One last thing, while playing football, Steven decided that his shoes were entirely in the way of his success as a football player, so he took off his shoes and played barefoot. I tried (unsuccessfully) to capture the filthy, dirt-encrusted toes with my pitiful camera phone, but this is as good as it gets. I actually gave him a mini-spa pedicure today, complete with Mary Kay products and a little pink nail brush. Don't let him tell you otherwise - he LOVED it!
