November 7th, 2007 - Gretchen breaks her arm

Grandpa Guerra had just arrived for a visit from America, Matt was on his way to the National BFP Conference (similar to General Council in the US), and Heather was filling in for another teacher at church. Gretchen, Nick, Joseph and Grandpa walked to the school playground for some special "Grandpa/Grandkids" time. When mom arrived home, Grandpa suggested she look at Gretchen's arm because she had hurt it on the playground. The first answer to the question of "What Happened?" was, "I fell on the playground." This would be her general response to that same question the entire time she wore her cast. The REAL STORY: she was riding Joseph's small bike that has no pedals on top of a wooden play structure that is about 1-2 ft. off the ground. When the front tire went off the edge she caught her arm between the bike handlebars and wooden structure. The REAL STORY was a little too embarrassing to repeat. Her Dad broke his arm in a similar location when he was a child. Mom has never broken her arm, hmmm.

Since Matt was away with the van, Heather put Gretchen on the back of her bike in Joe's bicycle seat and rode her across town to the University emergency clinic. Heather was very grateful that this experience came after two years of exposure to the language. The clinic system has many buildings and the names for the different clinics are not included in basic German language instruction. It was more than a little confusing. The wait time, however, was much shorter than expected and the verdict was a broken arm. Gretchen received her first cast that went from her shoulder down to her hand. Fortunately, it was her left arm and she is right handed. Later in the week after we visited a children's surgeon, she was able to have a shorter cast that covered only her forearm and half the hand. Her final cast was one we could take off nightly to wash her arm and put cream on it. The hard part of the cast was held onto her arm with a removable ace bandage. After three weeks with the cast, her arm had healed. She has just a few more days of release from PE and then all is back to normal.

We praise God that the pain was minimal and that her arm healed so quickly. Here are a few pictures of her showing off her cast.


— Posted in General