Beacon Rock with Abi

August 4, 2021: We went to hike Beacon Rock in Washington, along the Columbia Gorge. 

The hike is 1.8 miles out and back and climbs 680 feet to the top.  

I looked it up and there are 54 switchbacks along the trail to the top.

Hiking this much is difficult for me and I am slow.  But the views sure are beautiful!

Honestly part way up I didn't know if I could make it all the way to the top.

I am finding that since the accident, going on long walks or hikes ends up leaving me in pain after.  I have to be always looking down to make sure I don't trip, which seems ok at the time, but in the end I am left with neck pain and a headache.  

The kids at the top enjoying the view.

Josh and I came down slower, mostly because Josh was waiting on me.  The kids went down ahead of us.  When Josh and I got to the bottom, the kids came walking toward us saying "Paxton fell!  He's hurt!"  Paxton was wearing his new hiking boots that he planned to wear to high adventure the next day.  Apparently the loop from the lace of one boot got caught in the hook at the top of the other boot and tripped him!  Twice, it happened!  Paxton said both of his wrist hurt and his knee was bleeding pretty bad.  We had a little bit of a first aid kit in the car, so we bandaged up his knees and ended up heading home. 

Pax scraped up both knees, but one was pretty bad.  When we discovered he was hurt, I asked if I should take him to the doctor to get checked out.  At the time, he said no.  But a few hours later, after we got home, his wrists were swelling up and he was in a lot of pain.  And his right knee was bleeding through the bandage.  I asked again if I could take him to the doctor to get checked out.  This time he said yes.  So I drove him over to the urgent care.  When we got there, they told us that they were at capacity and not taking any more patients.  I was surprised, because they were still open for 2 more hours and we have never had that happen before.  I asked what should I do?  She suggested trying another urgent care, waiting to call his doctor in the morning or the emergency room.  I knew that Paxton was in enough pain that waiting for his doctor was not an option.  So we went back out to the car and I called two other urgent cares.  We got the same response, "We are at capacity and no longer taking patients today."  It seemed our only option was the emergency room.  I drove Paxton to the ER and when we got there the woman checking us in said that with his injuries, Urgent Care would have sent him to the ER anyway.  That is when I stopped being mad that the urgent care couldn't see him and realized the blessing that was.  I can't imagine if my poor boy had to sit in pain for hours at urgent care just to be sent to sit for additional hours at the ER.  --A few minutes after we were checked in, Paxton said his vision was going black and he thought he was going to pass out.  I knew they triage patients based on symptoms so I hurried back to the front desk and let her know Paxton felt like he was going to pass out.  I was able to help him feel a little better by getting him to drink some water, but that ended up being a blessing as well, because I think they took him back quicker based on that.

We sat in the triage area for awhile, and they only have these chairs and no beds.  Poor Paxton was so exhausted and just wanted to try and sleep.  I brought him a blanket because I knew it would hurt too much to try and put a jacket on if he got cold.   

They took Paxton back to X-ray both of his wrists and they cleaned up his knee.

Then they took us into a room where Pax could finally lay down on a bed.  As soon as the nurse said she was getting supplies for the sutures, Paxton said, "Did she say sutures?  Do I have to get stitches?"  The doctor was very nice and explained that he needed the stitches to keep the wound closed and to keep the risk of infection down.  The worst part was the needle pokes around the wound to numb the area for the stitches.  Pax said the stitches themselves weren't too bad.

Pax got two stitches in his knee.

The results from the X-ray were that he fractured his scaphoid bone in the left wrist and that he likely fractured the right wrist as well, since he also had swelling and pain there as well.  They referred us to see an orthopedic surgeon as soon as possible.  They did a partial cast on his left wrist and then wrapped it with an ace bandage and put a wrist splint on his right hand.  We left the ER at 11pm, so we were gone for about 5 hours and spent just over 4 at the hospital.  I was sure glad to be back home.  My only option to sit in the ER was the rolling doctor stool with no back support and times where I only had the option to stand, so my back was really sore and I had a bad head ache.

The boys were all still awake when we got back, as they were last minute packing for the high adventure campout that Paxton would now be missing.  Earlier in the day I had been so upset that we went hiking and Paxton got hurt the day before high adventure.  --But then we realized it was a blessing that Paxton got hurt here, locally, where he was close to home and the medical attention that he needed, versus being 5 hours from home at the coast where they would have had hike miles back to a car to get to a hospital.