Pre-China Troubles...

The past several weeks have been riddled with threats to cancel my first-ever trip to China. Well, I guess not "riddled" but still...

Swine Flu posed a serious threat and some of the summer programs were cancelled. I'm doing the student program, Barb (G's mom) is doing the teacher program. Her 3 week program got cancelled, so they transferred her to the 2 week program, and the third week she will teach students with me :) That ended up working out.

But even after the change of plans, the Chinese still weren't sure if the program was going to happen. Our advisor forwarded us the emails they got from the Chinese when they got them. It seemed like (and they said) there was still a chance that everything was going to be cancelled. they cited the fact that their health care isn't as good as ours, and if an epidemic were to start it would be harder to control since there are so many people per square foot. Several people from our group were leaving for the pre-tour and they were told "nobody is saying not to come."

The possibility of being quarantined is still very real.

But that's not what this post is about. I had a laundry list of things to do, and Barb had asked me to run to the bank for her to see if her checks she ordered were ready.

Of course, they wouldn't tell me because I'm not a "signer" on her account. Luckily, a high school friend happened to be of some authority there, and told me the checks were, indeed, there. But I could not pick them up. So Barb asked me to pick her up at lunch (she walks to the high school) so she could go sign for them. The bank (why, I still don't understand), closes at 3.

I went to pick her up and sat in my car to wait. I did notice it was taking longer than I thought and a guy in a salmon shirt started to walk towards my car. I pretended I didn't notice and started rifling around in my canter console. But he came directly up to my window and started knocking on it.

My immediate thought (I can't believe I'm admitting this...) was 'please don't tell me she had a gun...' but that didn't seem right.

I sat there starting at the man and he said, "your mother-in-law is in there. She fell. Her wrist is broken."

I still just sat there... waiting for him to tell me "April Fools! Ahahaha!" but he didn't.

"Mrs. Butterfield, I think the name tag said."

I didn't move.

"You'll need to come in."

She was walking out of the bank, and went to look at the checks when she pushed what she thought was a door.... only, it was a really clean window as large as a door.

Fast forward. They wouldn't let me drive her to the hospital so I ran home to get her purse and went to the hospital. A friend met me there to grab V, since I knew it would be awhile. And awhile it was.

The doctor knew it was broken before the x-rays, but they continued and did an x-ray anyway. They decided the best option (which she wasn't happy about) was to do surgery. It will heal better and there's less of a chance for arthritis and stiffness as the bones heal and in the future.

The x-ray was crazy looking. They way she hit the door (the force of which broke her wrist in several places...) perfectly scrunched her bones to the side, instead of lateral like you would expect. They were all on top of each other, and there were bone fragments "floating" (for lack of a better word) around.

So we had to do a bunch of pre-op stuff, since she insisted she's been waiting her whole life to go to China... and she's still going (bless her heart). That just sounded like it would go there. They planned the surgery for today.

The doctors were really sweet and she seemed in good spirits after I picked her up from the surgery today. In 6 days, she will go back and they will put stitches inside her skin, and glue the wound. That way she won't have to worry about an open wound or stitches while we're gone.

Baby V did have a hard time though. My friend said he was laying on the floor screaming and crying. She text messaged me, "is this normal?" but it's totally not. Even when he's tired. She said he kept saying "Momma's at hospital, Memaw got hurt" over and over.

My mom said he was crying when she picked him up. She thought he didn't feel good...

When I got home, he was still upset. He cried and told me he was scared. He didn't even want to take a bath, and laid on the bathroom floor, not in a tantrum way either. It was so weird.

Today he seemed better and he wanted "a big band-aid that covered his arm and hand." I cut him a replica of Memaw's bandage out of a sock. He was still a little mopey, but I tried to explain as best as I could that the doctor would fix her and she would be all better.

He was so sweet. He made sure I grabbed some fruit snacks because he said they would make Memaw feel better.

Here are the "Boo Boo Bandits:"

Yep. I made that up myself.