Thump In the Night

Last night, in the wee hours, there was a thump (that we didn't hear) and then a scream and some more screams (and more and more and more...) that we most definitely did hear. Gwen had fallen out of her bed, which is quite low, but she fell onto the hardwood floor and apparently hit in the wrong way. She cried for a long time and I sang about every song in my repertoire to settle her, to no avail. Her cries were definitely cries of pain, and so Scott began scrambling to make his way through the paperwork we'd been given about the medical system here and our expat insurance. He made several calls while she cried, but she eventually fell asleep and so we decided to wait until morning to do anything.

This morning we noticed that she wasn't holding her arm quite right, but we still weren't sure what part of her body she had injured. We made our way to the expat health clinic by late morning, where we found very helpful English speaking doctors. Gwen was not the least bit cooperative, probably because it was very painful for her to move. She did not want to let go of me, and she told me later that she was really sad when the doctor cut her pajama top off to try to look at her back. We ended up having to go to another facility, a children's hospital, for an x-ray. We had pretty bad memories of a children's hospital in China that we went to days after we adopted Gwen.... parts of this facility today were reminiscent of that visit. Loads of people filling every hallway, a somewhat dilapidated building. That aside, the doctor we saw first merely touched Gwen's clavicle with one finger and declared it fractured... Scott and I looked at each other in amazement and with kind of a "yeah, right" look between us, but when the x-ray came back, he was exactly right. Her right clavicle is broken clean through. Not only did the x-ray clearly show her broken clavicle, it also showed her wide open mouth... she was not too happy about the x-ray!

So yes, 8 days into our China adventure, we have a broken bone in our family. On the bright side, we have successfully navigated the health care system and been well cared for. Gwen is wearing a little cloth and velcro brace around her shoulders to hold the bone together, and by this evening was gingerly trying to keep up with the other kids.

Oh, and about the other kids... they did pretty well on their own today while we had Gwen at the doctor. Seth even made them all a special treat... mandarin oranges with Sprite poured over them. Can't beat that!