Ben rugby tackled Tom onto the sofa and Tom started screaming. He came down stairs and told me that Ben had ‘twisted’ his arm. He was crying for far longer than he normally would, so I knew something was wrong. I checked his arm and could not find anything obvious. He said one part of his arm hurt more than the rest. His arm was slightly swellen and hot. Sam was out, so we had to wait for her to get home before we could take Tom anywhere for a second opinion. I rang Debbie Lawson to ask where A&E was as a precaution.
Once Sam was home I decided someone should look at his arm. He could just about move his fingers, but he could not grip anything. I took him to Lower Hutt hospital and once we filled the forms in we started waiting.
The tirage nurse saw him almost immediately, but we waited over 4 hours after that to see a doctor. It can get very boring in a waiting room. The TV was one, but the sound wasn’t high enough to hear everything. We just about managed to follow the plot of the TV we saw, but missed all the details.
There was another family waiting next to us. Their daughter had hurt her arm too. They had been there 2 hours longer than us and had still not seen the doctor when we left at 23:15.
Doctor Fong checked Tom over and thought we’d better have an X-ray to double check the arm. We were in X-ray within 5 minutes. Two X-rays later and it was confirmed that he had a straight fracture in his radius just above the wrist. He is the first of our children to had broken a bone. I hope it’s the last too.
A nice nurse came and put the cast on his arm. Once we’d listened to the care information and she’d checked the cast was OK, we left. They gave Tom a certificate of bravery for coming to A&E. I should have had one for enduring the wait 🙂
I’d promised Tom he could have a KFC on the way home. We’d not had tea and we’d not eaten anyting for over 10 hours. Anyway the KFC closed at 23:00, the McDonalds was closed and even the fish and chip shop down the road was closed. Is no-one hungry after 23:00 on a Friday night in New Zealand?
