The Broken Arm: One of My Many Urgent Care Center Experiences

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This post is sponsored by Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, experts in children’s health and wellness. All thoughts are my own.

Being a mom is a tough job. Seeing your babies hurt is one of the hardest things we have to do. We’ve been through it all, and it never gets easier. B has been the most recent hurt kiddo.

You can’t become a seasoned veteran, either. Not when you take your first kid to the ER, not when you take your second kid to urgent care and they leave with a splint and then you have to go in for a cast, not when your third falls down the stairs and get and ambulance ride to the hospital. Nope. Never easier. We seem to be cursed with stair incidents.

B and E were playing at school in the morning, like they do most mornings. They like to follow each other up and down the stairs. It’s usually nothing more than walking up and down. But, sometimes feet get slippery. I had just turned around when I heard B crying. It was a different cry. Not even a scream, but this whimper. And she was holding her arm with her other hand and just snuggled me. She’s not our snuggly girl.

We waited around for a bit and she perked up and started using it. So in addition to me, several other adults thought she probably just hit it funny. I asked them to call if it seemed to start bothering her.

I got the call around lunch time from her teachers. After calling her pediatrician and learning they couldn’t see her, I visited the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta website to save a spot online at one of the Urgent Care Centers knowing they had X-ray and lab services (after taking a different daughter another time for pneumonia) if needed. They have seven Urgent Care Centers in the Atlanta area but since we had been to this location before, I knew exactly which one was closest.

It was so easy to go their website, find the location I needed and reserve a spot in advance. The website told me how long the walk-in wait would be, but allowed me to “Save a Spot” and displayed exactly when I should arrive. This is a great feature when it isn’t an emergency and you know you can wait safely at home. It saves so much time in the waiting room and can also allow a parent or guardian time to potentially secure childcare for other children.

When I picked her up she was just a little sad. It was when I buckled her in her carseat that I knew. I just tapped her hand, unintentionally and she lost it. She was telling me over and over how much I hurt her. I sent Mr. Serious a text and told him I was pretty sure it was broken.

Once it was our arrival time, we were checked in quickly and waited to see one of their pediatricians on staff who is specially trained to diagnose and treat children 0 to 21 years old. I barely had enough time to give her some ibuprofen and we were back with a doctor. You would never know looking at her face, would you? (But if you look closely at the hand you can see, those fingers are swollen).

Three X-rays and some “silly faces” waiting later, we had a diagnosis.

She had a buckle fracture in her wrist. It’s very common in kids and is basically a bend in the bone. We had a couple attempts at getting a splint on her because her hand and arm is so small, but the nurse got one to work. We called it a “fancy bandaid” and thankfully, she left it alone.

The whole time they were trying to get one on, both she and the splint specialists were wearing smiles.

The next day, we followed up with the pediatric orthopaedic specialists at Children’s to get her cast in the same building. She was insistent on red from the very beginning. They think she also fractured her elbow, too, but it was right at the end of the bone. Since little kids have tiny hands, they need the cast to have a bend in it so it can’t fall off.

Y’all, she’s taking this cast thing a MILLION times better than me. When I think about HER not being able to extend her arm, I have anxiety attacks.

Of course, this means bathing has been interesting. Thank goodness she’s still small because she fits in the kitchen sink!

It should hopefully just be 3 weeks before she gets it off and she’ll be back to her normal self.

The biggest thing now is that she’s not supposed to climb or be on a playground because she can’t catch herself if she falls.

So, for the next three weeks, our normal is just adjusting slightly. And, so far, she’s only hit one sister with her cast…so, I call that winning!

I’m hoping we can avoid all Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Urgent Care Center visits for the rest of this year, but it’s nice knowing it’s an option if our pediatrician is not avaialabe as well as if something happens during the evening or on the weekends.