Previously: Isaiah was told to go check on his sleeping baby brother. When he sees that he’s awake, he feels like he must tell Mom immediately. Dashing through the hall, he turns the corner and runs right into her. His leg is broken.

On the way to the hospital, I was in so much shock because of what had happened in the previous 30 minutes that I barely felt any pain in my leg. As our car drove into the parking lot, it slowly stopped. I was taken into the tall building while I was still inside my car seat.

“How can I help you ma’am?” The receptionist politely asked.

“I think my son has a broken leg…” Mom’s voice drifted away.

“Alright. Step this way please.”

We were directed into a room with not the best lighting, and I was set on a bed. The nurses unbuckled the strap on my car seat (I was really young when this happened, so I was still in one of those car seats that had a strap across the waist to keep the child from falling out), and I was gently lifted onto the main portion of the bed. It still hurt though, and I let out a small, quivering cry.

“It’s okay, buddy,” one of the male nurses softly spoke.

While on the bed, my leg was put into a makeshift cast made of a styrofoam-ish material and gauze. Then it was propped up on some folded rags. The doctors took an X-ray that confirmed my leg was broken.

You can see the X-ray picture by going to chapter 1 of this story, where the cover picture is a photo my dad took of the the xray image that was displayed on a computer.

While I was lying on the bed, a golden retriever was walked in, and I was allowed to pet him while the doctors were working on my leg.

Later that day, I was led to a room with bright orange walls and small clouds attached near the top of the wall. A fake Franklin’s Stove was in the corner.  In that room, I was put in a hospital gown. The doctors put an iv drip was placed on my finger. It was all very uncomfortable. The needle in my finger, my immovable leg, the scratchy hospital gown, I just wished it could all be over. Soon, a man brought out a table with a bunch of different colors of sample casts on it.

“Which color would you like, son?” The man said in a gentle but strong voice.

I looked at all of them carefully, examining each color. After all, I would have to be staying in one of those colors for many weeks. The black one appealed to me at first, but my eyes slowly drifted away to the red one. Red was my favorite color at that time, and it still is to this day, but for some reason I shouted out, “Blue!”

The doctors pushed my bed to a different room to put on my chosen cast. The cast was known as a half-body cast because it took up literally half of my body. My broken leg was wrapped completely except for my foot, and the cast came down on my other leg all the way down to my knee.

The rest of the day went by in a blur. I was placed in a curtain cubicle – a makeshift room with the hospital bed in the center, a monitor next to it, and curtains  surrounding the whole setup – for a little while. One of my friends came to visit me and gave me a stuffed bear to comfort me.

About 2 hours later, I was put in a car seat designed not to injure my leg, and I was allowed to go home.

Come back for Chapter 3 to see what happens next…