Our first broken bone.

It was bound to happen soon than later, right? I guess I'm just surprised it didn't happen sooner. From the time Z was a baby, we've lived with cement stairs. Our first apartment in Concord was on the second floor, no elevator and we had to take the stairs up and down. Even to do our laundry. Then in Oakland, even though we lived on the first floor, we still had to go up one flight of cement stairs to get to the first floor. We did have an elevator, but we used it mainly after grocery shopping or when we had heavy loads of baggage for trips. And yet in our newest apartment we live on the second floor and have a cement stairwell to our front door. But it only takes one mistake or a loss of balance to fall. And that's exactly what happened.

We were coming home from a trip from the store around 6pm and as I was getting the mail I saw her tumble down the stairs. And in that instance my motherly instinct hit and I knew it was something worse than just a fall. Cici's had worse falls on the stairs (or so I thought), but this time I knew something was wrong.

So I ran up to our apartment to put all of my belongings down, then raced back down to carry Z up to the couch. I then grabbed an ice pack and quickly called Dr. J on the phone. When he answered he told me he was finishing up a call with a co-worker and he'd just be a minute. Z screamed and screamed for her daddy and finally I had his full attention and gave him the scenario. We were lucky Dr. J was not in the OR seeing how he was the on-call Dr. for the night, so he was able to come home quickly and take a look at the arm. With his expert opinion we headed to the ER for x-rays.

Z did not want to go to the hospital. She cried and cried. She was scared and her arm hurt, I couldn't blame her. But after sitting in the hospital bed and getting royal treatment, she finally calmed down.

Of course the ER always takes longer than expected and so was the story that night. They said the radiation department was backed up, so Dr. J decided to use his magic. He went straight into the radiation department and got us in. It helps to know the right people.

After looking at the x-rays it was determined we had our first broken bone. A small one, but broken nonetheless. I am very thankful we didn't need the fracture to be reduced or be taken into surgery. I just know Z would have had a meltdown and the recovery would have been a lot worse. When we told Z that she would be getting a cast put on her arm, Dr. J informed her she could have a pink and purple cast with sparkles and her eyes lit up! Who knew a cast could be so fashionable?

The best memory of the whole night I have is when the ER Dr. was putting on her splint for the night. We had to remove her shirt to make room for the splint so her chest was a little exposed. Z looked at me and said, "Mom, don't be mad because people can see my boobies." "No, Z, I'm not mad," I said. (We've been talking about keeping our special parts covered.) We then covered her up as much as possible with her jacket and off we went to get some food.

It was a crazy night and I still can't believe it actually happened. But it did and now it's over thankfully. The great thing about kids is they don't let things like this stop them. They keep moving. Z was so excited to show her cast off to her teacher and classmates and most people didn't even notice the cast because it blended in so well with most of her outfits!

The one thing that I couldn't stop thinking about throughout this ordeal was the fact we were still living in an apartment. I kept repeating in my mind, "This wouldn't have happened if we lived in a house!" But it could have. It was just a matter of time. And most times it doesn't even involve stairs. I'm just grateful that is wasn't worse and I still have my lovely, healthy little Z. Because really, these little incidents are just part of life.