Our summer came to what felt like an abrupt end when Hannah broke her leg.
She broke her tibia {shin bone} and it was a “spiral fracture” which is common among children under 6 years old. We had some friends over and another little girl accidentally did a cartwheel into Hannah and that’s how she broke her leg.
It’s been about 6 weeks since it happened and she is in the homestretch of life with a broken leg. Hooray!
The first ten days were incredibly difficult. Hannah was in tremendous pain for the first 24 hours and it felt like all of a sudden, with no warning, we brought home a new baby. No one was sleeping, she was crying, she was essentially helpless, we had a jealous older brother and a whole slew of medical appointments and our life was upended on a dime.
Little by little, especially with the help of her cast, we all adjusted to the new temporary normal. Once Hannah was able to walk with her cast on things turned around dramatically.
School has been an interesting experiment for Hannah in a variety of ways. It’s forced her to advocate for herself a little bit, which is hard for her to do outside of our family, and she’s had to really be adaptable and figure out how to do things differently.
We’ve been quite creative in order to allow her to go to school while keeping her cast clean and dry. I bought a set of 7 pairs of adult rainbow socks and those slip on over her cast to keep the cast and her toes clean. She has a little “walking shoe” that helps protect the bottom of the cast. Microfiber towels are also amazing for either wrapping her leg or allowing her to sit on a clean surface to keep her cast clean. And for baths, we got a plastic cast cover, so it’s been a somewhat smooth process to bathe her.
As I’m writing this, Hannah is two weeks into her shorter cast and is able to run, hop, very carefully jump in puddles and she’s even slowly ridden her scooter. She’s officially at the top of my list of most resilient people I know.
This girl is unstoppable and so inspiring. She has complained a total of zero times about how she had to miss out on the first 6 weeks of ballet or that she had to completely miss soccer season, both of which she was so looking forward to. There were plenty of opportunities for her to complain about how annoying having a cast is or that she wishes she didn’t have it on or any number of other things to complain about when you have a broken leg, but she hasn’t. At all. It’s remarkable.
I want to end by extending my gratitude to so, so very many people who were there to support us in the beginning. It truly felt like we had entered into a new ring of hell for a bit there, and I’m so happy to say we’re very far removed from that. Every text or phone call checking in, the play dates for Ben, the meal delivery, flowers and the thoughtful cards and gifts for Hannah {and Ben!} really brightened our spirits. We felt so supported and like we really had our village to lean on. Thank you!
“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” —Leo Buscaglia
