Not the Saturday I Was Hoping For

This wasn't the Saturday I was hoping for. First it was a school day for Xavier. An open school day, which means parents are invited (expected) to come and watch. So we all got to go to school on Saturday. We also got a message that a friend needed to go to see a doctor. They are new to Japan and have not found a doctor near them. We offered to help them see a doctor in our area, but they had to drive over an hour to get to our area. I called our doctor and found out that she closes at 12:00 on Saturday and we didn't think they would be able to get here in time. We got them there at a couple minutes after 12:00, but our doctor was still able to take them in, which saved a lot of time. Our plan B was to take him to the hospital, which would have been more complicated. After Terence successfully helped them at the doctor and the pharmacy, we went back to tackling the list of things we needed to do today.

Then at about 4:30 Xavier called to tell us Tai fell at the neighbourhood park. He said his arm was weak. After we got him home and looked at his wrist we knew we were going to have to go to the hospital. Willem used his boy scout skills and did some first aid. He made a splint out of a sushi roller and a couple of boy scout neckerchiefs. We called the nearest hospital and were told we had to call the special phone number to find out which hospital ER to go to. (There is a system where different ER's see different patients after hours). We had to deal with this last August when we took Willem to get stitches on his birthday. Turns out the ER for us was the one we called first, the one closest to our apartment. It is about a 15 minute walk from our house, or a five minute bike ride. So we called the ER and found out that he had to be there by 5:00, which gave us about 10 minutes to get him there. This is a time where bicycles as our only form of transportation prove an extra challenge.  There was not enough time for a taxi to come, and our friend with a car was working. So bicycle was our best option. He couldn't ride his own bike* with an injured wrist so he went on the back of one of our bikes and we headed down the hill.  We made it right at 5:00 and finished right at 6:00.

We were pretty impressed with what they got done in that hour. The nurse came to look at him and they took him back to see the doctor.  Then he got x-rays, went back to the doctor to put his dislocated wrist back in place, and had a quick cast put on.  Then it was back for follow-up x-rays, along with a back x-ray to check his back which he decided then to tell us also hurt.  We then discovered the wrist was still not exactly right so they gave him a CT scan.  After that it was back to doctor for results, a referral and a prescription for pain meds. We then paid the full amount (most will be refunded on Monday) and got the prescription filled from hospital pharmacy.

The results were that he had a dislocated wrist and small bone that was shattered. We go on Monday for a surgery consult as they think he needs a pin put in. The surgery might be that day, too. We are a little worried about the overnight situation at the hospital. If one of us stay overnight with him we have to get him a private room which we would have to pay a lot extra for. The problem is, he will not be in the pediatric ward. If he was there he would be ok having him stay by himself but none of us are comfortable with him being in a room with three other male patients. Pray that we can work something out.


*When Willem cut his head he had to take about 45 minutes worth of train to get home because it would have taken much longer for us to go get him. We planned to take him to the nearest hospital but found out he had to go to one in a neighbouring town because he couldn't make it by 5:00. So he had to ride his bike with us for 15 minutes to another train line and then take another train to the right hospital.