The Banta Family: Been Waiting for it...

It has been years awaited and I was beginning to think we might be in the clear...however on this beautiful Sunday afternoon it happened. One of our crazy kids finally broke an appendage! It does not surprise Brian and I that it was are sweet angel Henley. She follows every step of her big brother and then some. I would not say she is a dare devil but, she is not afraid to hang with the boys.

This was the first Sunday that we had gotten our act together with three children and gotten to church and Sunday School. Lately, it had been only one or the other. We were so happy to go back to Sunday School. We love our group and have so much fun in that hour we are together. Well after class their were some friends who had not had a chance to really get their hands on the babies. We have two in our class born within days of each other. We were all talking and they were holding and loving on the little ones. Brian spotted all the kids from the nursery and they were out on the playground. She is usually with one of her friends Porter or Skylar but not today. She was climbing on the rock wall. There was a nursery worker behind her but, a certain someone opened the window to call her name. I think in that one second that everyone looked...she fell.

I did not see her fall, but Andrea the nursery worker was holding her and she was screaming. Brian went out to get her and i waited for them to come get me. Since I did not see the fall i had no clue how bad it was? I remained talking with friends. It was a good 10-15 minutes before Brian busted in the room screaming at me. He had been looking everywhere and could not find me. Hen was hysterical and he was too...he was screaming at me that Hen broke her leg and we needed to go to the ER now. I was a little taken back by the hysteria that just bombarded me so, I yelled back at Brian. I am sure a lovely scene watched by the whole church!

I desperately had to use the restroom and I knew if we were headed to the hospital it would not be very soon that I would find one. I jumped out of the car and ran back inside church. Julia who is the Pastor’s wife told me she felt so bad for us. When Brian opened the car door for me to get in...the baby was screaming, Henley was crying and Christian was running around!It was truly mass hysteria in our car. I was very calm and called the doctor to find out which Children’s hospital to go to. They told us downtown and they also told us do not take the baby in the ER!!! This was bad news because of course Henley wanted me to go in with her and I wanted to go with my baby too. However, nursing was not going to allow me to do that. Henley was very upset and did not want to go because last time she was at the ER with Staph, she was admitted for three days.

My mom came up and met us because we needed to leave a car for Brian to get home and we were not going to sit outside for hours waiting. At this point I was able to go in and stay with her for a few minutes and hear what was going on from the doctor. The doctor felt like her leg was broken, but they were waiting for X-rays.

The X-rays came back and confirmed that she had broken her Tibia and Fibula( Shin ). Since the Tibia connects your ankle to your knee it has to be kept very stable. When you have this bone broken...you get a FULL leg cast!! UGH! I could not believe what I was hearing! If that was not bad enough they would have to sedate her to stabilize her break before they put the cast on!

Henley did a great job! Brian said that she only whimpered a little when they gave her the IV. They gave her morphine so she would not feel them set her leg. She gets a little loopy when she is given pain medicine and I think she was entertaining the nursing staff! Here is a picture of our little trooper! She will be in this full cast for 3-4 weeks. After that she will be put in a boot or short leg cast for another 3-4 weeks!