Katie's broken nose

Poor Katie broke her nose a few weeks ago. We were at some friends' house after church on a Sunday night (July 26). There were a lot of people there, and a lot of kids were outside playing in the backyard, complete with an awesome tree house and round, wooden swings hanging from the trees.

Well, apparently one of the children pulled up one of the swings and let it go and Katie was in the WRONG place at the WRONG time. :( Poor thing got hit in the 'ole schnauzer! She was screaming and it was pretty obvious that her nose was really injured.

We left Gracie & Ellie with our friends and left for the ER. (On a side note: I'm a bit on the obsessive side when it comes to car seats & seat belts. When we got to the ER, I saw that Katie didn't have on her seat belt. We were so crazy getting into the car to get to the ER that we didn't even notice that her seat belt wasn't fastened. She usually does it herself but obviously wasn't thinking about it at that time.)

So, the ER visit went pretty well as far as ER visits go. She calmed down pretty soon after we got there, but she seemed like she was trying to fall asleep. We didn't want her to do that in case she had a concussion, so we gave her Chris's iPhone to watch a movie on and play games on. By the time we got back to a room, she was calmed down and was very interested in everything in the room. They sent her for x-rays where they had to tell her to stop talking and be still. :) She did really great with the x-ray. The doctor came in and asked us to come look at the x-ray where he said it had a small fracture. He said there wasn't really much to do at that point b/c of the swelling but that we should visit an ENT later.

I believe these pictures are from Monday (July 27):These are from Tuesday (the 28th):

I took her to our pediatrician the next day (or was it Tuesday?-I can hardly remember!) She said the same thing as the ER doctor..that we should visit an ENT. So, I made an appt. He wasn't able to see us until the 11th where he recommended that she have surgery. We had noticed that there was a pretty noticeable bump on one side, so he wanted to push it back in place. It was bascially a cosmetic issue, so I had some problems with doing it. I didn't like thinking that I was getting my 5 year old a "nose job" b/c we teach that physical beauty isn't what's important. He said though, "She BROKE her nose. We're restoring the appearance. Altering the appearance would be a nose job." I also feel better about it now because I have since heard about 2 people who had broken noses and then had problems later because of it, so I feel good that we had it fixed because who knows what problems could have arisen later.

These pictures are from the morning of the surgery. She had chosen some new Princess pajamas complete with a wand.
I was a bundle of nerves about the surgery, but she did GREAT! God truly took care of her, and we're very thankful! She was very funny on the "loopy medicine" they gave her to calm her down before wheeling her back to the OR. In about 30 minutes, the dr. (who prayed for Katie before the surgery!) came out and said it was successful! (He had previously thought it might be a bit too late but wanted to try it.)

These pictures are from when we came home from the surgery:Her recovery has been almost perfect! She had no pain but did complain that her nose itched and "there were boogers in dere!" ha! She had to wear a little hard plastic case on her nose with a splint(?) and some tape, but she was never embarrassed about how it looked. I'm thankful for that too! We went today for her Post Op appt, and he took the bandage off which she did NOT enjoy! I know it hurt taking that tape off after being on for so long! He wants to see her back in 5 weeks and told us to be really careful about not hitting it. Even a small tap could hurt it again. With her going to Kindergarten Monday, I'm afraid this may be hard. I got a note for her to miss P.E. and recess for 2 weeks (the dr. said I could get a note for however long I felt she needed it.) I feel bad making her miss for 2 weeks and I feel bad making her be "that kid" who has to have "special" things done for at school, but I also don't want her to reinjure it.

Even though I so wish this had never happened, I am thankful that God has protected her from any worse injury. That swing could have hit her in the head or the eye and caused much more damage. She did great with the surgery and didn't have any real problems coming out of the anesthesia. From friends, she got new books, cookies & a purse filled with treats, dinner-all blessings. Probably one of the highlights for her was her special friend, a 15 year boy from church she affectionately calls "Juice," coming to visit her this week and bringing her balloons. That was very sweet, and he'll probably never know...until he grows up and has kids of his own...how much that meant, to ME, for him to show her attention and be sweet to her!