A Broken Ankle and July 4th

It’s been a week since our summer took a bit of a rough turn for the worst.    Nina had an accident while on the jumping pillow at Great Country Farm and ended up with a fractured ankle on both sides and a dislocated growth plate.  The story is long and writing all the details will just get me annoyed again, but the short story is that we left Urgent Care after many hours on Monday with an unclear diagnosis. The doctor there was not confident reading the x-rays, so she had them sent out to radiology and send us home with Nina’s ankle wrapped, telling her not to put any pressure on it, keep it iced and elevated. 

Ok, so no x-ray results the next day, or the day after (meanwhile, I’m calling to try to find results multiple times a day), then again no results on Thursday, and Nina’s mom gets a bit angry at Urgent Care.  X-ray results followed, told us what we were hoping not to hear, then we were scrambling to get her to an orthopedic ASAP. The Williams girls came over with huge minion balloons and chocolate for Nina, then they took Lyla with them down to Hartfield (where we were supposed to be as well), and we headed to the hospital

   

We were so grateful that Nina got to see one of Mark’s former orthopedics from DC United.  When we got the diagnosis from Urgent Care, Mark got in touch with him immediately, and he said he would be happy to fit Nina into his schedule that day.  She left with a super cool cast but a sad prognosis – six full weeks in a cast and then they’ll x-ray again and hope that is all for the casting.  So, she’ll be in a cast the whole summer which is a real bummer, but we’ve been really proud of Nina.  She has maintained a really good attitude, kept her smile, and has been a real trooper through the whole ordeal. 

  

The first 48 hours in the cast were pretty easy.  She adjusted to getting around on crutches, and she spent a lot of time reading and relaxing.  She was dealing with pain and soreness, but we were able to keep her pretty comfortable which was good.  Cayenne did a good job of keeping an eye (or a couple closed ones) on her! 

   

Saturday, July 4, was Cayenne’s birthday, so she started the day with chicken jerky pancakes while Nina enjoyed some chocolate chip pancakes.

  

Nina was feeling well enough to want to go to the Leesburg parade, so we thought it would be a nice opportunity to get out of the house a bit.

Here comes the parade!

The Leesburg parade is very small town, but it’s a nice family parade and we enjoyed watching it.

 

 

Despite being in a cast and on crutches, Nina was still her cute and stylish self!

 

We had some down time in the afternoon to relax, then we had the July 4th party on our street with neighbors.  A couple of the neighbors got some great (legal and illegal) fireworks, and we enjoyed a rather nice show to finish off the day.

 

Starting on Saturday, Nina started to have a bit more discomfort with her ankle and cast.  We’re pretty confident all is fine, and she’s just having to get through some soreness, muscle spasms, etc, she’s also felt sad at her injury.  She misses being her old self and being able to be active and doing things.  It’s also hard to think that she/we won’t be able to do a lot of the things we had hoped to do this summer.  However, she has to go in for a new cast on 7/16, and I’m hopeful they can make that cast waterproof.  If so, that will be really great and possibly allow us some other activities, but until then, we’re playing lots of games inside and trying to make the best of a not-so-great situation.