Page 26 of Tacos & Toboggans
“So much better,” Addie said, her eyes misty. “They have their pacemakers like their Daddy, and the doctor said the ablations were a success. They’ll need the pacemaker for now, but he thinks that eventually, they won’t even need those. Time will tell as they grow.”
Ellis has a congenital heart arrhythmia that can be passed to his children. While their first daughter, Noella, doesn’t have it, the twins do. Thank goodness for modern medicine, in that it can test and treat the condition immediately, saving the girls from the risk of sudden death.
A car pulled up near the fence, drawing our attention, and a man whom we all knew well climbed out. Gabe Dennison. Heather’s husband, little Joy’s daddy, high school choir director, EMT, and detective of Bells Pass. He wore many hats, but he dedicated his life to keeping all of us safe in one way or another. His favorite job, by far, was that of Daddy.
“He’s got Joy,” Heather said, jogging to the fence and taking her little girl into her arms before they walked toward us.
They’d adopted Joy over four years ago. Due to Heather’s health condition, pregnancy was out of the question, but when the adoption agency told them about little Joy in the hospital alone at Christmas, they couldn’t get there fast enough to meet her. At almost four, she was a beautiful, vivacious preschooler who, according to her daddy, was the size of an elf. He wasn’t wrong. She was the same size as Addie’s twins, but that wasn’t unexpected with her spina bifida. She can’t walk, but the doctors assure them she’s healthy and right on target for development. The credit goes to Heather and Gabe for getting her early intervention and the therapy she needed. Joy loves her new wheelchair and can now play on the playground with her friends.
“Looks like your little adventure took a turn,” Gabe said when he reached us.
Ivy sighed heavily, and I could tell she was very upset, even though she tried to hide it. “We hit a molehill, and Jaelyn went flying.”
Gabe nodded as he knelt beside me and lowered his medical bag to the ground. “Well, let’s see what we've got. Does your neck hurt at all? Did you hit your head?”
“No and no,” I answered dutifully. “I fell off the sled, but we were almost at the bottom, so I just rolled. I think my arm must have gotten trapped under me at some point. Considering my size, it’s not a surprise that rolling on it would hurt it.”
“Don’t do that,” Heather said with a shake of her head. “This has nothing to do with your size and everything to do with a traumatic injury.”
“She’s right,” Gabe said with a smile. “Besides, your size is irrelevant to everything in life. You deserve to hold space here just like anyone else.”
I smiled weakly and nodded. Heather understood my body image issues. She has lived with acromegaly since high school, when she grew in height so quickly that they knew there was a problem. Ever since her surgery to remove the tumor growing on her pituitary gland, she’s struggled to keep her weight under control due to the damage to the gland that controls her hormones. I didn’t have that excuse. I wasn’t overweight, probably due to the nonstop movement in my job, but I was nearly six feet tall, and at two hundred pounds, I felt gigantic compared to the rest of the girls.
“Let’s see that arm,” Gabe said, snapping me from my thoughts. Since I didn’t want him to touch it, I raised my arm with my other hand, bracing my wrist so it wouldn’t bend. He gave it a cursory look and then nodded. “If it’s not broken, it’s severely sprained, but I’m pretty sure it’s broken. That needs an X-ray and a pair of professional eyes on it.”
“Oh no,” I said immediately. “I’m sure some ice and a compressive bandage will do the job.”
Gabe was digging in his bag and pulled out a pouch, setting it on my leg. “Okay, pick that up with your left hand.”
I eyed it. It wasn’t big, just a small pack of gauze and tape.
“Don’t do it,” Heather said. “It’s a trick. He did that to me when I broke my arm, and I threw up after my attempt.”
Gabe snorted, but didn’t back down from the challenge. “She was the cutest thing ever trying to pretend she wasn’t in excruciating pain so that I’d go away.”
“Truly adorable,” Heather muttered with an eye roll, which earned her a snicker from all of us.
Puffing out my cheeks, I decided I’d test my grip first. When I moved my thumb toward my pinkie, the pain made stars dance across my vision, and I leaned over with a moan, praying I didn’t do precisely what Heather had done. The last thing I wanted to do was vomit in front of everyone.
Ivy rubbed my back gently. “Deep breaths,” she said with a firmness I couldn’t ignore, so I inhaled and exhaled a few times until the pain went back to hovering near barely tolerable instead of completely intolerable.
Gabe didn’t gloat; he just picked the pack of gauze up off my leg and dug into his bag. “Did you know that we have eight bones in our wrists?”
“I didn’t know that,” I admitted as he brought out a splint.
“It’s true. Not to mention the two bones in our arms. Did you know that some people sustain a fracture in one of those bones without even realizing it? Sure, maybe they have a little pain, but it doesn’t stop them from doing whatever they need to do, and they only find out it was fractured years later when they have an X-ray done.” He had placed the splint under my arm, and Ivy held it while he loosely wrapped an elastic bandage around it. “Let me be clear.” He glanced up to make sure I was paying attention. “That’s not what this is.”
“But you don’t know for sure,” I said defiantly as he snapped and shook an ice pack before resting it on my wrist. My immediate gasp of pain stole the fervor from my words.
“If I were a betting man, I’d say you’ve got yourself a scaphoid fracture. I’ve seen it enough times to know the signs, but your reaction to moving your thumb was the clincher. A doctor will need to decide if a fixation procedure is in order before casting it.”
“Surgery?” Ivy asked, and he shrugged with a nod.
“I’m just guessing, but I’m also trying to stress to our friend here that she can’t leave the arm like this. If it is broken and she moves it the wrong way, she could do a massive amount of damage to the nerves and soft tissue.”
“I’m not moving it anywhere,” I mumbled. “The longer we sit here, the more it hurts.”
“I’d give you some medication, but knowing what I know, they’d prefer I didn’t since you’re headed to the ER. They’ll give you something there once they decide what needs to happen for the arm.”
