The Spring Break to Remember : 2020 Edition

It’s taken me awhile for the words to come, catch up from our week in Salt Lake, and adjust to our new normal. This is definitely a Spring Break for the record books and hopefully, those records will never be broken again! Here’s how it all went down….

Thursday, March 12th: I covered the Boys State Basketball semi-finals game with my camera and a photo student courtside. We won!! I raced home to back up the images and hop in the car to get on the road to Salt Lake City to visit my sister, brother-in-law and their kids. We were getting information from Loch’s Preschool that we may be asked to self-quarantine for 2 weeks after our return from out of state, so we’d emailed our District Office for feedback on that potentiality. We knew the risks, committed to being careful in our road trip and decided to still hit the road. At the time, the states through which we’d been traveling had fewer CO-VID19 cases than Iowa.

Friday, March 13th: We arrived in Salt Lake around dinner time and went with my sister to pick up her kids from their after school care. On the way home, she found out that all Utah schools were closed for two weeks. Effective immediately. Our original plan was an extended weekend with them and her kids would be in school on that coming Monday, but now that they’d be home, we started considering extending our stay.

Over the weekend, the kids played inside and out in the yard. Any plans we had to go skiing, the zoo, or eat out were shuttered, so it was a quarantine of 10 people only going out to get groceries (and for Katie, to go to work at the hospital where she’s a PA and Admin). By Sunday, we had a better idea of how we could help Katie & Eric: help them prep their house to go on the market and recover their regular organization as their kitchen renovation is wrapping up. Cleaning, organizing, pitching and sorting began. If we had any germs on us, they got scrubbed off of us by the sheer amount of bleach and antibacterial wipes we used!

Monday, March 16th: Gerard & I enacted a “Homeschool” schedule of sorts-some educational activities for the kids throughout the morning, lunch, quiet time in the afternoon and then free play before dinner. Going from 2 to 6 kids was like going 0-75mph in a Tesla, but I think we did a fairly good job! We did yoga, had an astronaut read Rosie Revere, Engineer from the Space Station to us, Mo Willems taught us how to draw our favorite Gerald and Piggie characters, lots of reading time, math on Freckle etc. By Monday night, we had an inkling that Iowa schools would be closing with the Governor’s press briefing/recommendation.

Tuesday, March 17th: Norwalk Schools followed the recommendation of the Governor and closed all facilities through April 12th to resume classes on April 13th. We were in constant conversation about lengthening our stay and the ramifications that could occur as a result. With this lengthened break before us, we knew upon returning home we could self-isolate without having unpaid leave from work. Katie & Eric were having a POD delivered on Wednesday to help declutter their house so we decided to stay until Thursday, now able to help them load the POD with heavy items the next day.

Wednesday, March 18th: I was awakened by the sound of window glass clattering in its place, cabinet doors rattling and the bed shaking. Something I hadn’t felt in roughly 20 years and something my three other family members had never felt before: EARTHQUAKE! I looked to the side of my bed to check on Loch in his cot and didn’t see him, so I went to the doorjam. When the bulk of the shaking had ceased, Loch came stumbling over to me from his cot! He’d been so balled up under his blanket that I didn’t see him in the dark! Cue the Mom-Guilt. The initial earthquake registered a 5.7magnitude on the Richter scale and some aftershocks registered as strong as a 4.7mag. No damage to the house, but that and all the aftershocks delayed the POD by a day as the building it was in needed to be assessed for structural damage. The weather in Wyoming, where we pass through to get home, was also anticipated to get a 4-6inch dump of snow resulting in blizzard conditions Thursday-Friday. So, we decided to lengthen our stay again with a new departure day of Saturday, March 21.

*Side bar: It was really entertaining to know more about a topic than my husband. “Carrie, the walls were bending! What the heck?!”

The rest of Wednesday, we did our educational activities, lots of free play while adults packed boxes. The afternoon found the kids in the backyard, I was cleaning up the kitchen and Gerard was pitching/sorting in the garage. I had a few items to take to the recycle bin and then I was going to head to the backyard so there was an adult out there with the kids. I was at the recycle bin when this gutteral cry came from the backyard-the three adults present couldn’t assign it to a specific child-we’d never heard any of our kids scream-cry like that before. We ran into the house because the child in question had made their way in from the backyard. Loch had blood on his left gloved hand and Gerard swooped him up and got him to the kitchen sink. I took his glove off and immediately turned away to sit on the stairs, calling Kate’s name to come down from her bedroom. Eric went up the stairs to explain the urgency. She came down and assessed that yes, we needed to rush to the ER of Primary Children’s Hospital where she works. By then, I got up from the stairs, grabbed my wallet and car keys with my phone in my hand. She tapped the address into my google maps and we left.

It sounds so smooth writing it out, but there were some sharp tones and tough decisions made in those brief 3-5 minutes. I was not in any condition to view Loch’s wound (the sight of family members’ blood is my kryptonite, I will faint) but I also couldn’t imagine taking care of 5 other children as my son is heading to the ER with bone from his finger exposed. Eric stayed with the kids and made dinner, Kate had to head into work at the same hospital and I drove Gerard, Loch and myself to the hospital. It was the only job I felt capable of doing. I will never publicly divulge how fast I was going and with a perfectly timed call from my sister to confirm we were headed in the right direction, we made a few quick turns and landed in the right spot right as she was telling me to make those turns. I parked in their Emergency Parking, ran in to the lobby and confirmed that I was at the right place. I ran back out to the lot and motioned to Gerard to come. Running in together, hospital staff offered us masks then thought twice when they saw Loch’s blood. We weren’t here for CO-VID19, we were here to piece our son’s fingers back together. Save your masks for someone who needs them!

Over his screams, I gave the admitting nurse our information in a teary voice while my throat was trying to choke me. Loch hated the admission bracelet they gave him, making his screams even louder. We were told that only one adult could be in the triage room with him, so once they got Gerard & Loch headed into that room, I was left in the lobby. I remember looking to my left to view an empty waiting room and to my right to the sliding doors leading to the parking lot. The admitting team behind their desk confirmed what I was surmising: the waiting room wasn’t recommended and I was welcome to wait in my car. I squirted some antibacterial onto my hands and walked through the doors into fresh air. The tears were done, the choking sensation abated. Though Loch may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time with a 16lb rock 20 minutes prior, he was now in the right place at the right time with an impeccable team and all I could do was wait. As my sister jokingly told a colleague that morning, “With the pandemic and earthquakes, we’re waiting for locusts to descend.” I gazed out onto the view of the Salt Lake basin, imagining the locusts descending.

I used my wait time to text some friends, Bible study group and my parents to let them know what had happened and to ask for prayer. Gerard sent me text photos of Loch having a great conversation with the Child Life Specialist (above) now that a large dose of pain meds was doing the trick. Apparently, our son is quite the charmer! The doc got on speaker phone with me and detailed what kind of injury, procedure and recovery we were facing: a crush injury, shattered bones would be put back into place and he’d be stitched back up. The nailbed injury would require the removal of the nail to ensure the next nail would grow back normally. They would give him a foam splint for now and we would need to see a hand surgeon upon our return home for deeper diagnosis and outlook. “I’ve seen worse and those patients are fully recovered, living normally.” were her words that we clung to.

While the procedure had started and Gerard wasn’t in the room with Loch either, I headed home for my phone charger, a book and a quick bite to eat. While home, I let the kids know that Loch would be ok and headed right back to the parking lot. By 9:15pm, we were headed home with a very groggy boy who’s left hand was wrapped up the length of his arm.

Thursday, March 19th-The next morning, I deemed a “recovery day”. Yes, we did some educational things, but not nearly like the days prior. We were helping Loch adjust to his different level of flexibility, Katie needed to rest from her Wednesday Night shift and Eric had a boatload of classwork/work-work to plow through. I challenged myself to photograph this day on my phone without showing Loch’s injury, it felt too intimate/too soon (for lack of better words) to share fully just yet.

Friday, March 20th- The POD had arrived Thursday afternoon and by Friday, we were ready to load it up! The Big 3 cousins helped us wipe down surfaces, dust and in general clean up as we got boxes and tubs out of the house. The Little 3 had a ball together doing dramatic play. Friday was the first day of our week-long stay that we had all 4 adults on deck and able to be in the same room for more than 5 minutes! With the shut down of the state of Utah, Eric was home doing work, Katie wasn’t assigned to work at the hospital until Saturday. It felt really good to see those boxes loaded up, furniture make its exit and the cleaning that happened on the back end. It’s really therapeutic to clean someone else’s house! :) We worked hard to get the kids in bed early so the adults had time to play a round of cribbage. The guys went to get ice cream and when they got back, we were done with Kate’s closet and could give cribbage our full attention.

Saturday, March 21st-Katie left early for her shift at the hospital, we hit the road by 8:30ish after saying our Goodbyes. We made it to North Platte, NE by Saturday night, wiped down every surface with antibacterial wipes when we entered the hotel room, put all dirty clothes in a plastic sack and went to bed around 9pm. Every rest stop was eery-people weren’t looking each other in the eye. There was no talking to strangers, no smiles to greet people, and it was Wyoming!

Sunday, March 22nd-We arrived home mid afternoon, after only one stop for gas/potty, stripped upon entering our laundry room, immediately washed hands and wiped down surfaces in the car. Ate dinner, bathed and went to bed to resume our new normal of this CO-VID19 quarantine.

Monday, March 23rd-After a few phone calls with our general physician, we got an appointment at DMOS (Des Moines Orthopedic) with a hand surgeon who looked over Loch’s x-rays and report from Primary Children’s, took off his bandage and he was given a cast. When asked what color he wanted, “Black” was his immediate answer. So, “Black Spiderman” will be in our house for the next 3 weeks until we reassess. We used Monday as a catch-up/recoup day, picking up Ella from the parking lot of the kennel & getting groceries. I used part of Monday as well to make a game plan and find resources for this new HomeSchool reality in which we find ourselves.

Because we saw 33 different state license plates on our 15 hour drive over the weekend, and Laidy was gifted a United States coloring tablecloth/poster at Christmas, we’re focusing her on the United States this week. Lochlyn is working on writing the letters of his last name since he’s doing really well with the letters of his first name. Together, we are planting seeds of veggies and flowers, learning the parts of a plant, filling out a growth chart/journal. I’m sure we’ll deviate a bit at times-this morning, Loch wanted to know how a cement truck works so we looked it up on YouTube. We’ve been inundated with resources but those are the big three for this week with some yoga, Mo Willems and some church time/devotional time mixed in.

We hope you and your’s are safe and healthy. My prayer is that we use this time to our greatest advantage with members of our family, checking in Face to Face with amazing technological options and learning in ways that we might not have available to us normally. If you would like suggestions of educational resources, I’m happy to forward on to you what we’ve been given and you can sort through what would work best for you. We’re here to help in any capacity we can during this new season.

Love,

The Krupkes