On April 19, 2012 I was prepping dinner when I got the call. I looked at my phone and knew I recognized the number but couldn't figure out who it was so I decided to answer it anyhow. It was Bailey's coach on the other line saying that Bailey had fell at practice. The coach explained that she didn't see the fall but saw how Bailey had landed and it didn't look good. She also said that Bailey was crying which surprised her coach knowing Bailey is tough and wouldn't cry unless something was seriously wrong. I felt a tad relieved from my initial reaction to hear that she had hurt her arm and still wanted to stay at practice. I was worried but figured it couldn't be too bad if she wanted to stay. Ten minutes later I got a call saying she wanted to go home. I told Mat that I would go pick her up and we could decide then if she would need to see a Dr. that evening. I received another call from one of her teammates a few minutes later saying I needed to pick Bailey up. She didn't know that I was already on my way but her teammate sounded very shaken up and had clearly been crying. I didn't take it as a good sign. When I arrived at the gym my heart broke to see my baby girl sitting outside the door waiting for me in tears holding her arm. I gave her a big hug and helped her in the car. When I called Mat he said we could probably just wait until the next day and see if it was still hurting. He hadn't seen her. I told him that he should at least call our neighbor that is a sports Dr. and have her arm looked at. Our neighbor was actually waiting curbside in from of his house for us and took a quick look and said it needed x-rays. We headed to the instacare where luckily Dr. Dan was the Dr. on shift. Bailey's arm was broken as well as her shoulder bone. Both Dr.'s made sure to tell Bailey that cheerleading was the most dangerous sport for girls but Bailey was more frustrated that she'd not be able to participate until after summer.
Luckily her arm didn't need to be casted based on where the breaks were and THANKFULLY she wouldn't need surgery (which was a big concern for us). Bailey was worried that she caused us unexpected medical bills. I told her thanks to Dr. Dan giving us a discount that having her break her arm was actually cheaper because we would miss a few months of cheer payments so we pretty much came out ahead. ;) Of course we would have paid double for her to have kept her bones in tact and be pain free. We allowed her to stay home from school the following day since she was still in quite a bit of pain. She had many friends and her brothers spoiling her with treats and well wishes and felt rather special. When she did return to school the next week she faced a lot of criticism from other girls who was sure that she was faking (even posted on Facebook about it) and thought she was just looking for attention. Clearly none of those girls know Bailey. Three weeks after breaking her arm and shoulder blade she was hating missing cheer and decided that if she could do a backhandspring that we would allow her to go back so she went outside on the trampoline and practiced one handed backhandsprings! Four weeks after she injured her arm and should she was showing us on her gym floor how she could do a backhandspring and was begging to go back to cheer. Yes, it hurt her. The pain clearly wasn't as bad as not being able to do her favorite thing ever. We allowed her to go back to cheer after 5 weeks if she promised to take it easy. Thankfully she has been back for months now and only faces mild tenderness from her injury now and then. We always knew we would get a call like that and just hoped if we did that it wouldn't be devastating. Honestly, as far as a cheer injury goes we were super grateful. She was injured at the beginning of the year so she wouldn't be out of any competitions and would have plenty of time to heal before competitions, and her injury was really something that was able to heal on its own. Other girls on her team have not been near as lucky.
The first wee she was back she ended up falling while tumbling and her coaches actually dialed 911 and then realized it was a false alarm. She really makes it look so easy you forget how dangerous all of the things she does really are. Bailey is back at cheer in full force and truly looks stronger and more capable than we've ever seen. Truly grateful!
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