This is the second in a 3 part series: read “Where We’ve Been – Part 1” to see the beginning of the story
Terror struck through my heart, but there was nothing I could do until the seizure finished. So I waited until the convulsions stopped and he finally lifted his head. He made a lunging movement in an effort to get up, which is entirely normal for him to do. It’s also normal for him to lose his balance and fall right back over again. But it is not normal for him to make a strangled, stuttering, keening sound, as though in pain. His shoulder was grossly misshapen and he was holding it in an odd position. Staggering, crying, covered in his own urine and saliva, he tried to find his center of gravity on three legs. With a trembling heart, I whisked him downstairs, into the bathtub and began to examine him closer as I ran warm water over him to clean him up and soothe his shoulder.
There was a strange lump protruding from the usually smooth plane of his shoulder blade. There was swelling all around it so it was cushioned in tissue, but it was beyond a doubt a bone. Pippin was fussing, wanting me to feed him now, like I usually do. In fact, food generally comes first even before a bath. But this time I was too worried about getting a better look at his injury to waste time feeding him yet. The warm water I laved his shoulder with seemed to calm him, however. His cries faded away and he stood more quietly, blinking his large buggy eyes slowly as I poured very warm water over and over his swollen shoulder.
All I could think was It’s broken, it’s broken. That awful snap, the way the bones are out of place, all that swelling. Oh, God, please don’t let it be broken!! I scrubbed him down with the lavender baby shampoo I always use, running my hands only very very lightly over the injured shoulder, rinsed him off and lifted him out of the tub with a towel. As soon as I took him out of the tub, away from the warm water and into the cold air, he began wriggling frantically, crying irritably when I made him stand still for a toweling off session. But his desperate “leave me alone so I can run to the kitchen” cries turned into yelps of pain when I began trying to rub down his shoulder. So instead, I pulled out the hairdryer. The instant he laid buggy eyes on the hairdryer, Pippin limped to a corner and tried to hide himself by curling up. Unfortunately for him, I was not about to let him run around all wet in the house, so on went the hairdryer and I ran the warm air over him. That resigned look appeared on his face and he sighed as he accepted his doom. But at some point during the process, he discovered the soothing properties of warm air caressing his shoulder and his resignation turned into something like pleasure. Since then, I have not been able to get this sort of reaction to the hairdryer. I’m not sure why he dislikes it so much, but apparently that time it felt good to him.
Finally, Pippin was relatively dry and beginning to fuss again, reminding me he hadn’t been fed. I picked him up and carried him to the kitchen where he received his overdue after-seizure snack.
Everyone else came into the kitchen to see Pippin, the news having gotten around that it looked like he had broken his shoulder. When he finished his food, someone called him experimentally and dutifully Pippin limped over to the summoner. He put no weight on his shoulder, yet it bulged and writhed in gut-wrenching ways as he moved. We all agreed: Something was most definitely broken.
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