About five weeks ago Arden broke her leg. She was having a tantrum, flailing about and fell on her foot the wrong way. At first we thought she was faking when she said her leg hurt, but then she said she just wanted to go to bed. It wasn’t quite 6:00 PM.
A day of hospitals and doctors appointments later she had a full leg cast and a prescription for a child walker and wheelchair. Jen and I were beside ourselves. We had a depressed 4-year-old on our hands and we were overwhelmed by the prospect of having to care for a virtually incapacitated pre-schooler in addition to our 18-month old menace. Arden couldn’t even take off her own clothes anymore let alone go to the bathroom by herself. I was carrying her in there 15 times a day. Who knew she peed so much?
When I called Arden’s pre-school to ask if they could make accommodations for Arden the school director initially balked at the idea. That was until I started throwing around terms like “illegal” and “law suit.” We eventually agreed upon a late arrival for Arden (because the kids go upstairs for a morning assembly before coming back down to the classrooms and the director didn’t want her teachers carrying Arden up and down the stairs – reasonable) and an early departure (because as I just mentioned going to the bathroom for Arden was a time-consuming ordeal and her teacher leaves at 4:00 PM so there wouldn’t be enough aftercare workers to take Arden on her bathroom sabbaticals.)
We initially tried to get Arden to use the walker, but thanks to a completely inept physical therapist who tried to train her like a dog, Arden wanted nothing to do with the thing. So we decided to get her a wheelchair, which freaked her out at first, until she tried it. Then she was suddenly liberated. She could wheel around the house and was no longer (completely) dependent upon us. But she was still afraid to go to school. But when she arrived back, that first day, the kids swarmed her. She was now the center of attention. She was the cool kid with a pink cast that they all got to sign. Arden was a 4-year-old rock star.
Amazingly, five weeks in, Arden has remained in the spotlight at school. She gets extra attention from the teachers and the kids make accommodations to hang out with her (“let’s not play on the top of the hill because Arden can’t come up here.”) Arden’s having such a great time she’s actually dreading the ultimate removal of her cast. But I have to admit that after the first few days of taking care of our cast-bound little girl, things weren’t half as bad as we initially thought. In fact, Arden’s overall attitude has changed at home too. She hasn’t had a single tantrum since the incident. It probably doesn’t hurt that every time she starts down the unreasonable/meltdown path we say to her, “Remember what happened the last time you had a tantrum?” And she always hangs her head and says, “I broke my leg.”
About a week and half ago Arden got a shiny new green half-cast. One that she could walk on. At first, like all things, Arden didn’t want to walk. She didn’t want to give up “the chair.” But her doctor said to me, “Just bribe her with a nice toy and she’ll walk.” And just like she said, after we gave Arden a Snow White doll, she was on her feet, cruising along the furniture like a toddler. A day later she was using the walker. Of course she found it more comfortable to put all the pressure on the broken leg instead of the good one, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, as of last night Arden started hobbling around the house walker-free, after which she turned to Jen and said, “I finally have my life back.” And she does. We all do.
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