Sometimes fun turns bad. . .

How many of you growing up had your parents "ride" the

shopping cart like this with you in the cart??

I remember both of my parents doing this a ba- jillion times growing up.  I even remember asking for it coming out of the store.  It was an easy way to have fun, sometimes I would hang on the outside of the cart and sometimes one of my brothers would be in the actual seat part facing whoever was pushing the cart.  Well some 20+ years later I am doing that with my own kids, in fact it has become a regular part of shopping.

Every two weeks I would wander around Sprouts and Sam's with Masyn and Ryleigh, and anywhere else we needed to go.  Often the kids looked forward to that time (because nothing is better than crossing things off of the list for Mom, or reminding Mom what she does not need to buy.)

On November 16th it was grocery shopping day and the kids were excited.  I tried to be excited, but let's face it: I dread grocery shopping.  In any event, we always go to Sprouts first because it is in Fort Collins and always on a Wednesday (double ad day, who can resist).  On the way out of Sprouts the kids requested that "we go fast" or in other words "ride the cart Mom!"  I said no because we had parked too close to the front of the store and there were lots of other cars around.  Next we headed to Sam's Club; the thing that the kids like about Sam's is that they both can sit in the cart.  We hurried through Sam's and paid for our groceries, waited in line to have them check the cart and give the kids smiley faces on the receipt.  After the special smiley faces were drawn on the receipt by the door checker we headed out to the car.  Again came the question, but with a "pretty please?" this time.  How could I refuse? So I made it through the crosswalk (this is one of our rules) and I started the ride.  With one foot on the cart I pedaled my other foot over and over again gaining speed.  When the right speed had been reached I lifted my foot to ride the cart, and WHAM!!

The next thing I knew the cart was tipping towards me.  I knew it was going to be bad and I tried to ease the impact on the kids' legs, but it didn't work.  The push bar came across the kid's legs hitting Ryleigh just above the knee and both kids screamed instantly.  We were all on the ground; me on my knees and the shopping cart on top of the kids legs, all I could hear was them screaming.  I tried to lift the cart but was only able to get it up about a foot to a foot and half off of the ground before my grip slipped and it fell to the ground again.  I tried again to calm the kids down and lift cart.  Finally after what felt like an eternity I got the cart up.  I took a quick inventory of the injuries to the kids.  I didn't see much right away.  Ry said her leg hurt, and Masyn had lost his shoe in the ordeal.  I leaned over and was hugging them and trying to console them all the way to the car. 

Once I reached the car an older lady came over and told me she saw what had happened.  She asked if she could load my groceries into my car while I took care of Ryleigh and Masyn.  A separate gentleman also saw what happened and came to help the woman loading my groceries. I picked up Masyn first.  His shoe had come off on his right foot, but I didn't see much else.  I gave him and hugs and kisses and told him he would be okay and buckled him into his car seat.  I went to Ryleigh and lifted her out.  She had visible road rash on the back of her left thigh, the width of her thigh and about 3-4 inches long.  This was bleeding, I asked her to stand up and she was able to with assistance, everything else looked okay.   I carefully carried her over to the car and put her in her booster seat and buckled her up. 
As soon as I got myself in the car I lost control of my emotions.  I cried and apologized to the kids, and told them it was an accident.  I called Doug on my way home.  Doug was in bed because he had to work that afternoon from 4pm to 7am the next morning (Doug had taken a partial extra shift at work).  He thought I was in a car accident and wanted to know where I was.  I was able to eventually explain what happened and that he needed to meet me outside to get the kids inside the house. 

Once inside Doug and I were able to look the kids over more thoroughly.  Masyn has road rash on his right heel, and not much else.  Masyn was able to calm down pretty easily.  Ryleigh's left leg was swelling and was bruised pretty seriously and she was really struggling at calming down.  After about 15 minutes I told Doug we needed to take her to urgent care.  Doug stayed home with Masyn, because he still needed to go into work that night and be awake all night.  I took Ryleigh to urgent care, it was a long ride up to Fort Collins for the both of us.

Once in the room the nurse asked what happened, so I told her.  The look on her face was one of shock.  She said then what I've heard seemingly a thousand times in telling this story: "I do that all the time with my kids".  All I could do was shake my head and try not to cry for the millionth time.  The doctor came in and the story was told all over again.  I was trying to help myself feel better and at the end said "guess I won't do that again", he looked at me and said "ya think?"  "Thank you doctor.  You really know how to dole out comfort!" was all I could think of.  After he looked Ryleigh over he said we needed to get an X-ray to see if anything was broken.  This is what Ryleigh's leg looked like.  You can kind of see the bleeding from the road rash on the back and the bruising on the front.  The X-ray may be hard to see because it is a picture of the actual X-ray but her femur is broken just above her knee.

The doctor at urgent care put her in a splint that covered her from hip to toe and sent us the the orthopedic center for evaluation of surgery.  When we spoke with the doctor at the Orthopedic center he was unsure about surgery and went to get a second opinion.  Lucky for us no surgery was needed!  The casting technician came in and Ryleigh immediately won his heart.  He tried to get her to talk to him about her bear that she had, he even tried to tease her a little.  They decided that she shouldn't have a hard cast yet because of swelling and they wanted her road rash to heal some.  Ryleigh got her splint back on her leg and we headed home by way of picking Ayden up from school. 

I called Doug to let him know about Ryleigh and asked about Masyn.  He said that Masyn hadn't put any weight on his leg yet.  This concerned me because he didn't seem to be hurt that bad earlier.  When I get home my Mom was there to help me figure out the rest of my day, she sent Masyn with my sister because Doug was getting ready for work and then she went to pick up pain medication for Ryleigh.

I got details sorted out about a wheelchair for Ryleigh while my Mom is out.  Afterwards we headed up to my Mom's to gather the boys and eat dinner.  When I got to my Mom's house and I am told that Masyn refuses to walk or put any weight on his right leg.  So I decided I better take him into urgent care as well.  We ended up seeing the same doctor as I did with Ryleigh (which is good I didn't want to tell the story again).  He evaluated Masyn and we did some X-rays of his leg.  They couldn't determine anything so to be safe they splinted him the same way Ryleigh was, hip to toe, and told me to follow up with my regular doctor in two days.  At the follow up we were referred to orthopedic center because he still hadn't put weight on his leg.

 

On Monday we went to the orthopedic center for both kids.  They took more X-rays of Masyn's ankle and foot area because they were concerned about growth plate damage in his heel.  The doctor  informed Doug that growth plate damage can take up to 10 days to show up, so they decided to put Masyn in a cast to protect his heel just in case something had happened.  Ryleigh also got her first of at least two casts that day.

Here they are showing off their casts.

(don't mind the ugly futon mattress,

I was washing the cover that day)

Ryleigh's cast was pink with sparkles and Masyn went with yellow.

Lucky for us Ryleigh's cast was waterproof; she could take baths all she wanted.  Masyn's wasn't, the doctor didn't suggest it and neither of us knew they were around (bummer!!)  Doug's parents came up because I needed help taking care of the kids.  This was a huge blessing because Ryleigh needs help with EVERYTHING!  She is starting to scoot around the house and experiment with movement.  I do lots of lifting to get her in her wheelchair, the car, her bed, the couch, and the toilet. 

The kids had a blast having people sign their casts.  Masyn would go up to somebody sit down and stick his leg in front of them and say "want sign my cast?" Everybody did, I mean who could resist that right??

Yes that says "sam's club kid" on her knee! Thank you Brother Hunt!

Masyn's signatures went all the way around his leg and the bottom of his foot.

This last week we took them into the orthopedic doctor again and it was determined that Masyn didn't have any damage to his growth plate and he was able to get his cast removed!  He was pretty excited at first, and then was upset because Ryleigh got a new cast and he didn't. Remember how I said that Ryleigh had won the cast technician's heart?  Well she had a hard time deciding what color of cast to get and he said that he could make her a glow in the dark candy cane cast.  He told her that he doesn't do that for everybody.  She giggled at that thought and said yes.  Ryleigh is on cast #2 which looks like this.

Yes it really does glow in the dark!!

"Look no cast!!!"

He was beyond excited to have it off.

Learn from me and be SUPER careful riding the cart with your kids in it, better yet don't do it at all (I won't be anymore!)