I couldn’t help it, I promised her a pony and a Hogwart’s letter.

Yesterday was not my favorite day.

Yesterday I took Gracie-girl to the orthopedist to follow-up on the buckle break in her wrist, the one that happened during our Thanksgiving Week Massacre. It was A Day from start to finish. (Well, actually the night ended up okay. Spoiler alert.) The day started with me bolting upright in bed, remembering, with cold panic seeping into my stomach, that I was supposed to have stopped this weekend and gotten copies of her films from the emergency clinic. Which I forgot to do during the other 800 things I had going on. Whoops. That meant I’d need to leave work an hour earlier to stop by the clinic and get copies before our appointment. I was already leaving work an hour-and-a-half before the appointment because I had to drive across town to get the girls from school, allow a ridiculous amount of time for the school to dismiss the girls, find them, and summon them to the office (last time it took 30 minutes. Wish I was lying.), and then drive across town again to the doctor’s office.

But we managed to accomplish all of that with plenty of time to spare. I filled out more new patient paperwork than I would have if I had applied for a mortgage, and then we finally made it in to see the orthopedist. Whom I adored! He took new films of Gracie’s wrist after I explained that she had fallen on it again since the original x-rays, and a few minutes later he brought in printouts showing me that while she had a small buckle break and hairline fracture originally, the second fall on her wrist had made the buckle break larger and the hairline fracture had snapped clean across. No wonder Gracie’s wrist hurt so much!

This is when the awful started. The orthopedist let Gracie choose between getting a shot into the bone at the break to numb her arm before he manipulated the break into place, or he could just set the bone without it. He explained that either option would hurt, but the choice was hers. I loved how compassionate he was, and how he recognized that Gracie is a ten-year-old, yes, but one who speaks well for herself and is used to a fair amount of independence. Gracie started crying, not really liking either choice, but eventually decided on the numbing agent. The nurse and I held Gracie down because the shot – it hurt. Gracie screamed more than once, although she tried to hold them in. And good gracious, I don’t blame her. The wonderful, wonderful nurse and I got her calmed down while we waited for the numbing agent to take hold, and then it was time for the cast. That’s when I about died.

The ortho had explained that he had to pull and pop, but I was under the impression that the numbing agent would dull most of it. Or maybe it had and I really, really don’t want to know how bad my daughter would have screamed without it. Because she screamed. Loudly. She didn’t even try to hold them in. I’m sure the entire office, the entire floor, heard her. It was all I could do to sit in the chair and keep a steady stream of encouragements going once the worst was over. I actually turned to Bee at one point and forbid her from breaking any bones. Because nope. Not doing that again.

After her arm was set and x-rays had shown that the bone was set correctly, Gracie had happily turned toward wondering how we should all sign her cast. (I knew she was feeling better if her dictatorial side was coming out.) I snapped a pic of her fancy new cast:

And dropped her off at her dad’s for dinner, since he’ll be out of town the rest of the week. All it took to boost Gracie’s spirits was to tuck a sharpie into her backpack to take to school. Not that she forgot any of the hundreds of promises I made when she was being set in stone.

Me, on the other hand, my nerves were pretty frayed still. So it took a bit more to set me right again – Christmas portraits! Stepmom had posted quite a few to Facebook, and you guys, they are stunning! It was lovely timing and just what I needed to finish the day smiling.

So there you have it. My daughter is a couple ponies richer, and I have extracted a promise from my girls to look out for all wayward bags of library books from here on out. I’m holding them to it.

Tags: broken bones, casts, Christmas portraits, orthopedics