Gracie's Arm

Gracie is shown here taking a break from her soft cast so she can scratch, scratch, scratch! With the swelling almost gone now and very little pain, her biggest complaint is the itching. I said "if you only knew how lucky you are to be able to take a break from your cast!". If everything goes well she should be able to come out of the cast and just use the sling in another week or so.

Our First Broken Bone

Well, the new year had started off pretty peacefully. We've all gotten over our colds and recovered from jet lag. I was even getting caught up on laundry today when the school called to say that Gracie had fallen on the playground and was in some pretty serious pain. Scott's office is right across the street from the school so I immediately called and asked him to go check things out. Very shortly after that I got a call back from Scott saying Gracie needed to go to the hospital for an x-ray. My heart just sank because I knew with Scott's coaching experience and first aid training, if he thought it needed an x-ray, he suspected it was broken.

So I packed up the boys and met them over at the hospital where I found Gracie in pain but no tears in sight. Her voice was shaky but she was a trooper as she described to me what happened. Gracie and her girlfriends were doing cartwheels on the paved part of the playground. The problem was that Gracie was wearing fashion boots with very little tread, so when she went over, her feet slid out from under her and she landed hard on her left arm and broke it!

The good news is that it is a "radial head fracture" and with this location they do not use a hard cast, but instead splint the arm in a type of soft cast and apply a sling. They encourage early movement of the joint to keep her from losing range of motion. She'll be in the splint w/sling for about 2 weeks and then another couple weeks in just the sling. The doctor said "if you're going to break a bone, this is a good one to break because it heals quickly in children" and that "in a month or so, she'll feel like nothing ever happened".

As for tonight, she is definitely feeling like something happened but I don't know what's worse; the pain, or the realization that she will not be playing basketball for the rest of the city rec season, practicing piano (at least with her left hand) or ice skating at Mahoney this year.

On another note, Gemma is insanely jealous of all the extra attention Gracie is getting today and has been heard walking around saying, "This is not fair! I want to break my arm!!"

Marshall

Don't you just love these eyelashes!!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Everyone!!

Japan-Day 14-16

View Photos Here:

Karen's: http://picasaweb.google.com/mommydanna/JapanDay1517Karens#

Danna's: http://picasaweb.google.com/mommydanna/JapanDannaSDay1517?feat=directlink

Japan-Day 10-13 Ski Trip

Warning! Lots and lots of photos and video clips! I will edit these when we get home....

View Danna's Here:http://picasaweb.google.com/mommydanna/JapanDay1013SkiTripDannas?feat=directlink

View Karen's Here:http://picasaweb.google.com/mommydanna/JapanSkiTripKarens?feat=directlink

Japan-Day 9

View Photos Here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mommydanna/JapanDay9?feat=directlink

With only one day to go before we leave for the big ski trip, Gracie is on day three of a 102.5 degree fever. John and Karen's doctor speaks really good English (in fact he trained at Yale in the US) so we decided to take Gracie to see him. We took Gemma along as well because her cough was not sounding too good either and I was a little nervous about giving her the over-the-counter cough medicine, especially since I couldn't read one word on the label and had no idea how much to give her!

The doctor's office is tucked away on a narrow street packed with shops and markets. Karen had to drop us and wait a half an hour for a place to park. The doctor's office was very busy with lots of sick children so the receptionist was really thrown off when we just walked in with no appointment and no medical cards! They were very kind however and after I filled out some paperwork and declared that I was going to be a "cash customer", they were able to create charts and make room for both girls.

We waited in the lobby for about 45 minutes and when they called our name we were led past a curtained doorway and asked to remove our shoes. We were all provided with slippers and asked to be seated again while we waited our turn. When we finally got in to see the doctor I was relieved to hear him speak very clear English. He got right down to business, we discussed their symptoms and he asked me "what I wanted to do"! So, I told him I wanted an expectorant to thin the fluids so they could have a more productive cough and I wanted antibiotics for Gracie in case whatever this was turned bacterial on me. I told him she had only had one antibiotic in 8 years and that I wanted to let the fever do its job for another day or two but that we were going on a ski trip into the mountains and I wanted to have the antibiotic with me in case she would need it. I asked him what he thought about that and to my surprise, he totally agreed with me! He recommended letting the fever go another 2-3 days! He asked me about Gemma and I told him she had NEVER been on an antibiotic and I didn't want one, I just wanted the expectorant. He checked her out and agreed that was all she needed. He wrote out the prescriptions, we paid our bill and went on our way! Obviously I was VERY nervous about going to a doctor in a foreign country but it turned out to be a very positive experience!

In Japan, people where a mask when they have a virus so as not to infect others. Our kids had been coughing so much we were worried we were offending people in public so we purchased some masks from the drugstore and tried them out. Luke loved his but Gracie didn't like the smell of hers. Personally I think it's a great concept that should be used in the schools for grades K-4 when kids are less efficient at covering their mouths! I think I will buy a box or two to take home and perhaps we'll start a new trend at St. John school!

Japan-Day 8

View Photos Here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mommydanna/JapanDay8?feat=directlink

The kids and I had a pretty quiet day today. Gracie has come down with flu and spent the entire day in bed with a fever. I helped Karen get her new I-Touch up and running, as well as her new terabyte hard drive and USB port replicator. We installed I-tunes and Picasa and made some practice runs at uploading and syncing music.

Scott ventured out with John on a 15 mile bike ride (one way) to a local brewery. They bucked some serious cold, head winds on the way out but then flew home after enjoying a nice lunch.

Gemma took some pictures at the grocery store with her new camera. She was fascinated by all the fish.

I stopped at the drugstore and had an interesting experience trying get help finding some medicine for Gracie. The shelves are stocked so similiarly to a US drugstore that you can practically find the product by location and the color of the packaging. Once I got into the general vicinity I was able to ask the pharmacist for a recommendation on brand and ingredients. The Japanese can take their children to a doctor for free for the first 5 years so they don't tend to buy over-the-counter meds at a drugstore. Consequently, there isn't much of a selection but I was able to find some "vicks type" chest rub and what I "think" is an expectorant!

I also picked up some Japanese baby food snacks. Again, it's amazing to me how they have such similar "concepts" but totally different products and manufacturers. So it's not like they have Gerber baby food with a Japanese label, it's almost all totally different, just organized in a similar fashion. You do see some US brands (the big ones) but not as many as I expected to see.

Japan-Day 7 Christmas Day

View Photos Here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mommydanna/JapanDay7ChristmasDay?feat=directlink

Japan-Day 6 Christmas Eve

View Photos Here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mommydanna/JapanDay6?feat=directlink