the rocking chair.

It seemed like an ordinary rocking chair.

My mother brought it over one day in the fall of 2004.  She had bought it as a gift for my wife, so that she would have a place to sit while feeding and caring for our newborn triplets.

The rocking chair was made out of solid maple, with a very nice finish, and it was very sturdy.  It has not squeaked to this day, and it does not wobble.

I grew to like the rocking chair very much, because it seemed like no one else wanted to sit in it, unless it was very late at night and one of the babies wouldn’t sleep.

So in many ways, it became my thinking chair.

The rocking chair led a rather ordinary life, until one Saturday night in October of 2005.

It started out like any other Saturday night at our house.  We had spent the day together as a family, laughing and playing and eating and talking.

The triplets were now almost 18 months old, and they could all walk very well.  They liked to play with their big brother Cameron, and teased him constantly.

Cameron was sitting in the rocking chair, in his pyjamas, and Aimee was teasing him, rocking him back and forth.

We had given the children a bath, and we were relaxing with them prior to putting them to bed.

Unfortunately, we did not notice that Cameron had slipped his arm between the rungs of the chair back as he played with Aimee.

I went to the kitchen to fetch a cup of coffee, and as I was returning, I heard Cameron cry out.

“Mommy mommy mommy my arm my arm!!!”

He was laying on the floor, clutching at his right arm, his face twisted in pain.  Aimee looked very upset, as she had not meant to hurt her brother.

I looked down at his elbow, at the impossible angle, and almost dropped my coffee.

I blurted out some random expletive, as people tend to do in those situations, and Cathryn scooped him up off the floor.

We asked Cameron if he could move his arm, and between the tears, he said that he could not.  As we examined his elbow, the purple colour made it clear that this could not be fixed with love and an icepack.

Just then, we heard Aimee cry out from the kitchen.  I jumped up, and when I rounded the corner, I saw that her mouth was full of blood.

It appeared to me that she had pushed one of the kitchen chairs over to the medicine cupboard, and in trying to retrieve some medicine for her brother, she had slipped from the chair and hit her mouth.

(She loves him very much, even though at times now you would not know it!  She was just trying to help.)

Another expletive… and then I cleaned her up, and hugged her.

In the mean time, my wife had prepared Cameron for a trip to the emergency room at our local hospital.

The triplets and I waved goodbye through the front window and sat down to wait until they returned.

About twenty minutes later, Aimee came over to me and said, “Look daddy”, and pulled out her front tooth.

I just about had a heart attack.  Then I had a shot of scotch.

She would not let me put the tooth back in, as it was too painful, so I put it in a cup of milk in the refrigerator, and contacted the hospital.  They said that (of course) there was nothing they could do.  As it was Saturday night and there was no emergency dental service available until Monday, I knew that she would lose the tooth.

Not long after that, the telephone rang – it was Cathryn.

She said that the doctors could not do anything for Cameron’s arm here, and they suggested that we *drive* him to the Children’s Hospital in the city.

Two hours away.

No ambulance.

As soon as I was off the phone, I called my parents, and asked my mother if she could come and look after the triplets while we took Cameron to the hospital in the city.  Luckily for us, my parents live about ten minutes away, and they were able to help.

By the time we set off for the city, it was about 9:30 at night, pitch black.  The trip that normally takes about two hours took us 90 minutes that night.

But it would be a long night, as the emergency room at the Children’s Hospital was backed up.

The reception nurse was horrified that the doctors at our shade-tree hospital had not immobilized Cameron’s arm at all, not even a simple sling.  I had not bothered to look under his blanket, as he was strapped into his car seat and covered up when Cathryn picked me up.

The city hospital ultimately filed a complaint with our local hospital.

After we were processed, we were sent to a waiting area, where we waited – and waited – and waited.

Around 1:00 am, a specialist came to see us, and told us that Cameron would be going into surgery to repair his elbow that night, as it was badly broken in several places.  Luckily for him, he was left-handed, as he would be wearing a cast from his wrist to his bicep for some time.

The doctor explained to Cameron that he would fix his arm, that it would not hurt at all, and that once the cast came off, there would be a small scar on his elbow, but that was okay because “chicks dig scars”.  Cameron thought that was very funny!

Our son went into surgery shortly after 2:00 am, and by 4:00 am he was in recovery.  Cathryn and I slept beside him in chairs, if you could call what we had that night sleep.

We telephoned my mother around 8:00 am to let her know that we would be on the way shortly, and we checked out of the hospital.

Cameron did not trust the rocking chair for a long, long time after that.