The first thing was that she had an orchestra contest for UIL. Her performing group, Symphony, joined with some of the band members to make 'Cinco Symphony' for this competition. She'll have a separate UIL competition later in the year that will be just the string Symphony which is how they perform the large majority of the year.
It was very sweet that Gracie's friend & dad stayed til her race (the 2nd to last one) to watch her and also, Kevin & Blake came to watch her. It's always nice to have support.
Even her face was scraped.
She texted me from school during 2nd period, saying that it really hurt to write. She said she had to write really slowly or it hurt and wanted to know what she should do. Well, Gracie is NOT one to complain, so we decided I should call the doctor. I called and made an appointment for later in the day and picked her up (a bit earlier than necessary because we'd made plans to eat lunch at school with Katie for her birthday, so we just figured we'd take Gracie with us since her appt time was close to when we'd be at lunch.)
I took her in and the pediatrician wanted to get us in with an orthopedic doctor. She thought about just getting her an xray but with it being a Friday afternoon, she thought we might end up in the ER if it was broken, so she sent us somewhere she knew could do it all...xray and then any other care that might be needed.
I took her in and they x-rayed it. We waited to see the doctor and then he came in and looked at it and said it was a Buckle Fracture. I'm pretty sure he said, "It's broken" before continuing on with the rest of the explanation of the name of the fracture. He showed us the x ray which looked like nothing much to me! After reading more about it online, it appears it is really more of a small fracture rather than what you might think of a traditional break, but to me, a fracture IS a small break. Goodness, it's certainly not whole! It basically says that 2 bones compress against each other, causing a small fracture in one of the bones (or something like that!) It mentions one way it can happen is when someone puts their arm out to break a fall, which is likely what happened. It mainly happens to children or the elderly.
So.....she got a lovely cast & will keep it for about 4 weeks! She knew track practice was going on, so she wanted me to drop her off at school. I halfway jokingly mentioned taking her so she could see her coach, and she jumped at the chance! She had already told me that her coach had been telling other kids about her that day, how she had fallen and kept going in spite of being hurt. She had told at least one other coach about it, too. I think it was making her feel special, which I think is okay.
There wasn't much of practice left, but there was enough time left for her to come home with a cast full of signatures, which I think may have been the main reason she wanted to go in the first place! :) Her coach called me that night and was just dumbfounded that her wrist had gotten so hurt and that she'd completed the race and gotten a personal best, even with being hurt. She told me she'd used her as a life lesson all day and told the other girls she didn't ever want to have any of them fall down and cry and not want to finish after what Gracie had done, and I think all of that was before she even realized how hurt her wrist was! She told me that she hadn't seen Gracie fall but at some point during the race, she noticed her knee and asked her (while she was running) if she had fallen. Gracie told her yes, but when she asked her if she was okay, she said yes. She thinks that it probably didn't look that bad at first, but after running a mile on it, it started oozing. *gross* Her coach didn't know she'd hurt her wrist because she kept asking her if she was okay and if anything else hurt (after the race) and Gracie said she was okay. Gracie is NOT a complainer and is VERY low maintenance. That's how I knew it really was hurt when she DID complain. I'm not sure she herself even realized how much it hurt until after she'd had some time to kind of think about it. She took a test in 1st period that Friday morning, and I think doing some writing for that, and then working on some math later, also made her realize it was hurting to use it in "normal" ways.
We're just so proud of Gracie. She ran that race, hurt, and never stopped (except for the short moment when she first fell) and finished last BUT with her own personal best time. She is so determined and so dedicated to doing what she knows she's supposed to be doing. We give glory to God for blessing her with the strength to be who she is! She's pretty much our hero.
