One trip to the ER later....‏

March 24, 2014

this is from sister bingham, since one armed typing is long and arduous:)  enjoy the adventures from this week!!! :)

 

Parenthesized quotes are from me:)

 One trip to the ER later....

....this time, not for me! I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've been in the ER for someone besides myself. This is a momentous occasion! :D (sister bingham has some serious allergies and goes to the er almost once every year, so being on the other end was different for her)

 

This week has been survival mode....I've included a cliffnotes version for those of you who don't feel like reading the whole thing/want to skip to the juicy parts!

 

Sister Haws fractured her elbow on Tuesday.

We went to a doctor on Thursday...he was an absolute quack.

She went to another doctor on Friday and actually got a good one this time!

 

So here's the skinny. On Tuesday we were parked next to the curb at the church, and I asked Sister Haws to grab something out of the trunk. As she was getting out her foot got wrapped up in the strap of her bag and she fell out of the car and ate it pretty hard on the sidewalk. She tried to catch herself but landed funny. She originally thought that it was her wrist, and said that it hurt like the last time she broke her wrist. So we decided to go to the hospital to check it out. Being the Boy Scout that I am, we ran inside to get a tshirt out of the lost and found and I made her a splint. And there was a blood drive going on in the building, so we grabbed an ice pack before we headed off to the hospital. I was rather proud of myself for remembering my training hehe.  (my story is that i saved her from a herd of wild coyotes and you should see the other guy)

 

While we were there we had the coolest experience! There was an EMT who wheeled a patient into the waiting room. While he was there he gave us a funny look and then said, "Sisters! What happened? Is today your p-day?" We laughed and told him what was going on, and he just shook his head. After he finished up with his patient he came over and said, "Has she at least gotten a blessing?" I replied that she hadn't yet, and he said, "I think I have a little bit of oil left in my car....let me go check." He came back a few minutes later and said, "I have just enough! Do you want a blessing?" So we went outside and he gave Sister Haws a blessing just around the corner, saying that they couldn't argue with religious stuff and that it would be fine. Tender mercies right there!

 

Sister Haws finally got admitted and they took a number of xrays. After several periods of waiting, they told her that she probably had a fractured elbow, though at this point the joint was too swollen to actually tell for sure. One of the nurses came and gave her a splint and wrapped her up well. But man, he gave me such a hard time! He asked Sister Haws, "Hey, did you beat you up?" "Yes." "Do you feel like you're living in a safe environment?" "Nope."  No respect, I tell you! Mind you, everyone has been asking me if I beat up my companion since then....I have no idea why! :P

 

After we were discharged from the hospital it was about 8:45pm. We ended up calling the M family  and asking if we could come get some food, since we had missed our dinner. They said absolutely, so we went there for a little while. They loaded us up on food and provisions for the next week or so....It was funny to see them go out into the garage and raid their food storage and come back with all this fun stuff haha.  (the M family have a daughter with the same allergies as sister bingham, so we know the food is safe)

 

Wednesday was rough...the hospital didn't give us her anything for the pain, they just said to take Ibuprofen. That wasn't doing anything for her though.

 

(we had a zone meeting that was long, but really good! sister bingham gave a REALLY good training in which everyone participated)

 

After that meeting we went to the doctor that the hospital had recommended...over in Fountain Valley. It was sketch. The doctor's office was so unprofessional it was just silly. The walls were pink, most of the counter space was filled with toy bunnies and easter eggs and chicks and all that nonsense....the staff was rude, the doctor himself was a quack. He answered his phone in the middle of the appointment with us. He was really rough with Sister Haws' arm and yanked it all over the place. (i had to keep telling myself "I am a missionary" so i didn't haul off and whack the man!!) He looked at the xrays from the hospital and said, "Well, the xray is normal. You can go back to regular life, I don't think it's a fracture." He then was really obnoxious when he wrapped her back up into the splint. I finally said, "Okay, look, she's in a lot of pain and Ibuprofen isn't doing anything for her. Could you give her something better for the pain?" He pulled out this wad of prescription sheets from his pocket and said, "Sure, what do you want?" Now if I was a drug dealer I could have said, "Oh hey, gimme some vicoden and some morphine and all the other stuff," and walked away a very rich woman. Anyways, he gave her some hydrocodon, and we left rather dissatisfied. When we got in the car we made some calls and decided to get a second opinion.

 

We ended up back at the M family's place that afternoon, and they helped us call around to find someone decent. And fed us ice cream in the meantime! Ice cream is always a must :) 

 

On Friday I sent Sister Haws off with Sister M, and they went to a doctor that sounds like he was much better. He told her that it was definitely a hairline fracture in the radial neck. She's out of a splint and just in a sling now--elbows apparently get stiff really easily, so she has to start moving and exercising it as much as she can. So it's been interesting since then. (in other words... OUCH!!!!!)

 

And then on Saturday, amidst all of this, we had a baptism! Christian is 9 years old, and he was baptized. His mother has been super less-active for 30-some odd years since she was 17. Last year Christian apparently when up to his mom and said, "Mom, you haven't done a very good job of teaching me about God." So at that point there was nothing she could do but stop avoiding the missionaries and allow them to start teaching him haha. Anyways, he turned 9 on Thursday and was baptized on Saturday (just barely a convert baptism!). It was really cool--all of their family came out and saw everything. It was great! We hope to be able to teach his dad in the future. It was just a really cool experience all around.

 

And that's the week!

 

I love you all! Hope everything is going well! :)

 

<3 Sister Haws and Sister Bingham:)

 

P.S. Sorry about the beast of an email....