And Then Summer Was Canceled

Sunshine's last day of school was May 19th.  We cut out early so she could run by SuperAwesome Elementary School to say hi to old friends/teachers.  The pool opened the next day so we spent the majority of our first week of vacation swimming.  We slept in late, we relaxed.  We were having fun.

The week of Memorial Day she started a week long ballet intensive.  Three weeks off proved to be a long time as a lot of the girls were beyond exhausted and sore.  Sunshine was on a steady diet of motrin, sleep, and eating to keep up with her dance schedule.

We were planning a trip to VA to see MIL this week so on Thursday I was getting my nails done while out running errands.  Sunshine texted me to say she wasn't feeling well.  She was queasy.  I suggested she sip some Gatorade, ask for a few minutes to rest and to lie down for a few minutes to see if the feeling passed.  She didn't reply so when I texted her during her lunch break she said she was feeling better and was able to eat her lunch.  I figured she was good to go and finished my errands before heading to pick her up at 4.  She called at 3:15 and asked me to pick her up as she'd hurt herself.

They were doing the dance of the 4 swans from Swan Lake when she heard a pop.  They immediately had her rest and iced her foot.  When we got home we had Hunter check her out (having an ex-combat medic in the house is helpful).  We decided to have it checked out at the ER due to the pop sound she heard.

A couple hours and one xray later, we were told that she had indeed fractured it and we would be hearing from the Podiatrist within 72 hours.  They put a splint on her, fitted her for crutches, and sent us on our way.

I started googling fractures--dancer's fractures, Jones Fractures, etc.  At the least we knew she'd be laid up for 6 weeks.  Summer session wouldn't be a thing for her and we needed to unenroll her.  The director of the ballet was sweet and called to express her concern for Sunshine.

Podiatry called the next day and wanted us there immediately.  We saw a bone scan and it was said that she did indeed have a Jones Fracture (the worst) and surgery would be next on our plate.   We were scheduled for Monday 6/6.

From what I've researched Jones Fractures are notorious for not healing properly due to either not having surgery immediately if not at all, and for the fact that there's limited blood flow to the area.  Sunshine has the Nutcracker in 6 months and rehearsals starting in 3.  We both cried and felt like we'd been punched in the gut.

So Monday came and went.  Her surgery went as planned---nothing unexpected was discovered, the 4 screws were put in, and she didn't appreciate me playing the intro to The Six Million Dollar Man and saying "we can rebuild her, we have the technology".  She was nauseous for most of the night because of the anesthesia.  The Percocet to help with the pain didn't help much either.

Tuesday wasn't much better as she was still nauseous and the Percocet wasn't helping with her pain.  A quick visit to Podiatry later we left with a new 'script for pain meds and something for nausea.  She slept much better last night and woke in good spirits this morning.

We have a follow up next week where we'll get our first indicator of how her recovery process is going.  Her doctor seems to think that because we caught it early, operated/repaired early, and her age that she'll make a full recovery with little to no incident of reinjury (common with a Jones that didn't have surgical repair).  And best of all, she should be back to dancing in late August, early September.

Hope and optimistic are big words for us now.  As are "rest" and "heal"