The ripples of work absorbed by a fracture
Coping with the challenges life throws at us is about more than our individual capacity and resilience. We rely on a whole host of support to navigate the bumps in the road life provides.
Two weeks ago our five-year-old daughter fractured her arm. She came running out of her gymnastics class full of excitement and eager to update me on how her handstand skills were developing. While we waited for her friends to come out she began swinging on a bar outside the leisure centre.
She lost her grip and fell, I thought on her back, but when I asked where it hurt she pointed to her forearm. A&E confirmed it as a green stick fracture — the benefit of bones that are still soft and flexible.
So many small things could have prevented this accident. I could have stopped her from swinging on the bar; she doesn’t lose her grip; the fall isn’t as bad.
There isn’t much point in having ‘what if?’ reflections but they still come. I feel bad that she can’t do so many things she enjoys. Swimming; playing in a playground; running around during break times at school. A couple more weeks and she can get back to it.
The rippling impacts of small moments like this always amaze me. The amount of work generated in a matter of seconds.
There is the work my daughter had to do to get used to having one arm. As if to prove a point, maybe to herself maybe to us, this week she surprised us by getting herself dressed before she even came into our room to wake us up. This is something that she has never done. A small victory for all of us.
The life admin required to postpone her swimming lessons; gymnastics classes; letting the school know. There was a very long trip to the hospital this week for my partner and our daughter to get her cast changed. Another visit in three weeks to take this cast off. She wants to be a doctor.
The work it creates for the hospital. All the reception staff, doctors, nurses, and radiologists needed after one slip.
There is also the school. Writing a risk assessment and making arrangements for PE and break times. The work of the amazing wellbeing ambassadors, older children keep an eye out for potentially lonely children at break times. One day this week the activities they did together were her ‘favourite thing’ at dinner time.
The stick insects kit I bought, in part to take her mind off the things she can’t do, is also going to create work for the next year and beyond.
We all have these moments where something unexpected, that we wouldn’t choose to happen, happens. A fractured arm in a five-year-old is a small life event that will soon just become a story. One of the few memories that gets stored in the long-term section of a young developing brain.
In a few weeks, the arm will heal and we will all begin to forget. For now, I am reflecting on how grateful and fortunate we are for the support that makes these unexpected stumbles manageable. The flexibility of our work; the institutions we rely on; the kindness of our friends and her classmates; her capacity to be brave.
The support structures and capacity to manage life’s challenges aren’t always there when people need them. We have to do all we can to make sure they are.
