Oh it's so nice to be back home. Just starting to relax now - that stress sticks around for a few days after doesn't it?

The fracture happened in Brighton, in the shopping centre. I was taking F to the loo and she was running down the little slope in the corridor as many times before. Suddenly she fell forward landing with full force on her bent wrist joint. She screamed out (but no louder than she has done loads of times without it being a break), I looked at her arm and it was all wrong, bent out of shape. So I looked away and looked back, hoping. But it was still all bent - no blood or broken skin.
I walked her gently to the Gymboree place nearby, where the guy there was able to stick an ice pack on it straight away, then he called the shopping centre security first aiders, who came and took some details, put a sling on, and called a paramedic. He arrived but only had a bicycle, so he called some fellow paramedics with an ambulance. Each new person had a look at the arm of doom and got F to wiggle her fingers, which she was able to do, thank goodness. It was her right arm, which is her 'difficult' side.

So eventually we were in an ambulance and on our way to the main hospital in Brighton. Booked into A and E and I had called J to tell him what was happening. Lots of waiting around for short-staffed nurse to do various things, but fortunately the first thing she did was give Paracetamol, Ibuprofen and Morphine in varying amounts (she wasn't even going to tell me what the amounts were, but I got bolshie and asked exactly how much morphine - too many well-publicized cases of serious errors made at that and other local hospitals - she seemed quite surprised that I would want to know!). J turned up just as we got into the X-ray waiting area, and he took F in for her X-rays. While they were in the room, another little girl with a right-arm fracture turned up. She also turned out to be called F! And she was almost exactly a year younger than F. Also, F1 had broken her arm in Btn but lives in L, whereas F2 had broken her arm in L, but lives in Btn. Bizarre.

After X-Ray, F was getting very hungry as she hadn't eaten since the morning and it was now well past 5. I asked a nurse, who said F could eat. But then, as I waited to pay at the shop for a few snacky items, another nurse breezed past and shouted out 'F's mum, that's not for F is it? You know she can't eat?'!
After a while, F had a plaster cast put on and we were able to transfer to the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital, brand new (used to be a very old hospital on other side of Btn near where we used to live, I worked there for about 6 months a long time ago) and built on the same site as the main hospital. It's beautiful, spacious 4-bed wards with toy cupboards, books, paint and paper out for kids to use, pull-down beds for 1 parent per child to stay overnight. Very good. Oh and we had a fab big loo right near our bed, with a view over the sea, the city and the pier all lit up at night. F liked that.

Up on the ward, we settled F in and they decided she could eat after all, up until late evening, as she would have her procedure to set the bone in the morning. So she got some food - good snackbox - sandwich, fruit, yogurt. F decided she wanted her dad to stay the night, so I left them to it at about half nine and got a taxi home.

Next day, complete change of plan, I got to the hospital at about 10 I think, to find that the new plan was that F would have her procedure in the afternoon and it would involve putting a metal plate in to hold the bone in place, that she could have had breakfast but nobody had thought of telling them, so now she would be going for about 15 hours without food. Usual rubbish communications then!
Other F was on F's ward so there was much swappage of 'what's happening then' type info and mutual tutting about misinformation.
F did a bit of painting and we read to her, played DS, etc. She wasn't in pain and was in quite good spirits, though a bit wanting to get it all over with.

At last the time came to take her down to surgical. J went into the Anaesthesia room with her and the last thing she said to him before she went to sleep was 'See you later alligator'. He was too choked up to say anything but the nurse said 'In a while crocodile'.
We went and ate something while it was all going on, nervously. The time went mercifully quickly and we went back to the ward and waited, counting the minutes for the last 20 or so, when the nurse appeared and said we could go down and get F.

She had opened her eyes but was now out again. It was so lovely to see her, awwwwww. Sleeping away, looked fine, good colour, breathing steadily, etc. Phew.
It was a long time before she woke up, think it was early evening in the end. So nice to have her back. She had to demonstrate that she could sip water for half an hour and keep it down before she could have food. She was really hungry so managed that, and then ate - think it was toast, just a slice. Then she was back off to sleep shortly after that. Lots of sleeping to recover from anaesthetic and procedure. I stayed with her that night, she only woke up at 3 when nurse brought medicine, we had a brief walk around the corridor, visit to playroom, then back to bed.

The final day in hospital was just the long long wait to see somebody - anybody - who could tell us whether/when we could go home. F was in very good spirits, didn't seem to have any pain and was getting livelier by the minute, painting, playing in the playroom and repeatedly asking 'when will we be going home'. The first theory offered to us was that somebody would come round between 10 and 12. That didn't happen, so the next idea suggested was that they were running late and would be around at 1 or 2. Eventually, can't remember exactly, but think it was about half four, a doctor came round and said we would be able to go and only had to have some plaster done and the cannula removed. The other F was not doing so well, poor thing, and still required an X-ray - her fingers looked swollen and she had been sick soon after coming round and not got up much.

We went off with a very competent and authoritative (very much the exception, didn't realize how much so until we were in her capable hands) staff nurse, who had worked at the old RACH for years. She did the plaster work - not a full plaster, F has a bandage, plus little bit of plaster that isn't entirely necessary, due to the metal plate doing its job - and a junior nurse with her removed the cannula under her guidance (much needed). And then, almost unbelievably, we were suddenly able to leave! Said goodbyes to other F and our F painted a Get Well picture and left it in the window.
And then we just got a taxi home and flopped! And here we are. F is bouncing around and would go on the trampoline if I let her. She is looking very well and I'm sure her arm must be healing excellently, judging by her general mood and appearance.
She wanted to use her birthday money to buy a cassette recorder with microphone recently, so I had ordered it online before all this and it arrived while she was in. So she has been recording all sorts of things and getting to grips with the weird old technology of mechanically moving a long strip of tape past recording heads - very strange!
And other than that it's just recovery stuff - reading, films, DS, etc.