Friday I was finally getting some writing done at work, and had just walked back into my office with lunch in hand. My cell phone rings and the ex says, "camp just called and Calvin broke his arm." My office is on the 6th floor facing west in Marina del Rey, and his camp for the week is at the UCLA Marine Aquatic Center, which happens to be due west of me, about a half mile away. While I'm on the phone with her, right on cue, I see a fire truck with lights on making the turn off Lincoln (the main street) onto Fiji towards the MAC. I drop lunch, head down the elevator and quickly drive the half mile to the MAC.
I pull up and sure enough there is the fire truck along with paramedic unit. Sitting on the bench is the boy getting an orange vacuum splint applied to his right arm. He's pretty freaked out, but dad's here so everything will be marginally OK. I hop in the back of the ambulance with him strapped to the gurney and we ride to UCLA Westwood hospital.
They wheel us into triage and I'm taken aback a bit by the traffic - people on gurneys parked everywhere. After about 20 minutes the triage nurse checks him out and we get dropped into an exam room. Very nice nurses and docs coming through to get him checked out, then x-rayed, then back to the room. He fell while running playing capture the flag (putting his hand down to break his fall - classic injury) and I though it was his wrist but once they took the splint off I saw the somewhat boomerang shape of his lower arm and figured it was a double break of radius and ulna. They developed the films and I asked to see them - sure enough, both cracked and one bent back.
His mom showed up at the ER and we all hung out. She doesn't like docs or hospitals and gets squeamish but luckily I don't mind and am pretty curious about everything, knowing just enough premed topics to be dangerous. We soon get moved from the exam room to another hallway and that's where we spend the next 6 hours - in the hallway. Next to us is a young kid with a urinary tract infections (gave him a script for Keflex and sent him home) and a guy in his 80's with Parkinson's, cancer, and in for bad bed sores along with his wife (not very patient) and his daughter (very nice). Amazing the stories and lives you see hanging out in the hallway of an ER. Like the woman who got wheeled into one of the trauma rooms to be seen by the residents. The attending doc had seen her multiple times over the past few years, removing various pens, paper clips and other sharp objects she had jabbed into her abdomen. Then there was the guy who had a neurological exam, got tired of waiting on the gurney in the hallway (despite him being brought lunch) and finally removed his IV himself and walked out following a heated phone conversation with someone (friend? family?) who didn't want to come pick him up from the hospital.
Anyway, back to Calvin. They determined that they needed to reduce the fracture, and the boy is a wimp when it comes to pain (more mom genes). By contrast, I broke my wrist in a floor hockey game in college early in the first half. I finished playing the game and then when to the ER to get xrays. There was no way they were going to be able to do it with him conscious, and he asked to be knocked out. They gave him ketamine, which is a freaky drug - eyes are open and they are "awake" but their conscious mind is disconnected from the body. They put him "under", manipulated the arm and put the splint on. Checked with xrays afterwards and looks like they got it right. He has to go to ortho next week for them to check the early healing and then get the "real "cast.
I have to commend the staff - they were all great. It was a long 8 hours of mostly standing in the hallway trying to keep son and mom from freaking out. The hospital is excellent but is too small, and evidently they built it that way. There are no beds, and for people admitted there currently is a 1-2 day wait for a room. Crazy. At least the Santa Monica hospital (run by UCLA) actually has beds (learned this listening to the doc talk to the patient next to us in the hall).
Stuff happens. Hug your kids, and be happy that things aren't worse (please no parf-ish healthcare rants).
