Saved by an Angel Part 4

I told her yes they're going to let her up now. Just as I uttered the last word a nurse walked in and freed her from the torture board. Before we knew it, we were walking out of the emergency room. I carried her out in my arms and it was a mutual cling fest. James kept reaching over to touch her arm, her back, her head. It was hard to believe we were taking her home.

As we neared the road we had to cross to get to our building, we were blinded by bright lights. At least three tv stations had shown up wanting an interview with us. They had been told by the manager of the building, Terry, that we weren't home. They must have thought we were in there hiding.

We were quickly overwhelmed by the reporters, our heads spinning as questions were fired at us like bullets. Before we knew it we were standing in front of three different cameras being interviewed for the news that night. It was over rather quickly and we were able to go upstairs away from the chaos on the street.

I sat on the toilet seat with her still clinging to me and started running her bath. When I put her on her feet to stand her in front of me, she yelped and refused to stand on her right leg. I looked at her face, but she didn't appear to be in pain. I quickly stripped her diaper off and sat her in the bathtub. Lots of washings later she was squeaky clean. We were all exhausted, so it wasn't long till I settled her in bed. A friend of ours stopped by to play Magic, a collectible card game, but he didn't know all we had been through. We filled him in and his reaction was the same as everyone else's, astonished.

I kept hearing Serena whine off and on from her room. It was a bit after 9:30 pm and I went to check on her because the whining and whimpering was getting louder. She wasn't having a nightmare because she hadn't been to sleep yet. She wouldn't tell me what, if anything, was hurting her. I picked her up and carried her into the living room. As I laid her on our bed, I glanced down at her legs. I did a double take as something caught my eye. The longer I looked, the bigger my eyes got. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Her right ankle was extremely swollen as well as black and blue.

Without turning around I said, "Ummm, hun, Serena's ankle is broken."

"What?" he asked looking up at me from where he sat on the floor.

"Her ankle is broken."

He scrambled up to take a look at the ankle himself. We looked at one another and he thought maybe it might be. I shook my head at him and said there was no maybe about it, the ankle was broken. I could "feel" it for a fact. Our friend put his cards away as I got myself and Serena ready to go back to the emergency room we had left only two hours ago.

I feared having to explain everything to the doctors and nurses, but I worried for nothing. Serena was big news! The ones who had been there when we came in regaled the next shift with the details of the little girl who fell three stories and went home because she was fine. It made things easier on me.

As we sat in the waiting room, the 10 o'clock news came on. There were only a handful of people and at first they were sneeking sideways glances at us as they looked at the tv, and then at us. Soon it turned into ourtight staring while their heads swung back and forth from the tv to us, it was amusing because they looked like they were watching a tennis match.

Finally, one guy near us spoke up. "Excuse me, is that..."

I didn't let him finish as I nodded and told him yes that's us, that's her. We began to feel a bit like rock stars at this point. A couple of minutes later, a nurse came to get us. I was terrified of the x-rays I knew would have to be done. Serena didn't disappoint me as she did another round of screaming bloody murder rendering me permanently deaf, as well as partially deafening a new set of hospital personnel. I found out they had taken x-rays from her hips up earlier that day. I saw her face down in the dirt, so they didn't think her legs had been affected.

By about 11:30 pm, she was the recipient of a half cast held in place by a spiffy ace bandage with a set of instructions on care, and orders to get her to an orthopedic surgeon. We left the hospital for the second time that night with Serena getting a piggy back ride from me. I tucked her into bed not long after and she was out like a light now that she was feeling less pain. My mind was still mulling over how the hell she had broken the growth bone in her ankle. How did she land on her feet?