As a mother, there are many times you have to bite your tongue and not say, "I told you so" to your child/children. This was one of those times for me. :)
Actually, it was probably the 2nd time where something major has happened to Savvy physically here in Angola when I've had to bite my tongue. Both incidences came after I gave her counsel against doing something with a warning that she could get hurt if she continued to do what I counseled her not to do. This time, she broke her foot (last time she did a cartwheel in front of the kitchen and sliced her whole heel open and had to get a bunch of stitches without being numb). She was telling me the week before this happened about how she climbed trees at school and would jump off of them but how she almost fell out of the tree one time. With Savannah, I've learned that she doesn't respond at all to us as parents if she feels too restricted in making her own decisions or that she's losing her freedom to use her agency. So instead of telling her that she wasn't allowed to climb them anymore, I tried to convince her that an accident could happen and that she could fall from the tree or land wrong and break an arm, leg, foot, etc. Her response: "Oh mom, I've done it a zillion times. I won't get hurt." Again, I admonished her not to climb the trees at school or at least not to jump down from them because of the risk of an accident, but left it up to her to decide. I was determined to make it through our short time left here in Angola without another medical emergency or accident (especially because of the poor medical care available).
After the weekend, I got a call Monday morning just a few minutes after I sat down at work, from the school nurse. She said that Savannah had climbed a tree and jumped down from it and landed wrong. She thought she may have broken her foot or at least sprained it badly. It was totally swollen and black and blue. Without having a car, I immediately got a hold of the bus driver that had just dropped the kids off at school, and he turned around and went back to pick Savannah up to bring her to the embassy. We went to see the nurse right away and got some medical advice. She sent us to the Luanda Medical Center for x-rays with Anna, another embassy nurse, who could make it all happen quickly and represent us with her native Portuguese. Unfortunately after the doctor examined the x-rays, he couldn't tell us for sure if her foot was broken. Kind of a waste of time then because the treatment of icing and wrapping her foot and restricting its use was the same as what we would have done even with a sprain. I believe there was a small break though--Savannah has been off of her foot for almost a month now and has been in pain for weeks and has hesitated walking on it because of the extreme pain. She is only now starting to lean on it a little as she walks with crutches. For a young body, I would have expected faster healing if she had only sprained it.
One of the major disappointments for Savvy with this accident, is that she hasn't been able to continue with her horseback riding lessons. In September she started taking lessons about an hour away where another embassy wife goes to ride. I went with her for the first lesson which I loved because Savannah is so cute with the horses and loves being around them.
Savannah got to go two times with Annie before this accident happened and was anticipating another 4 lessons before we left Angola. We were so excited for the opportunity too because Annie's fairly new here and because of her passion for riding (and desire to teach), she found this Portuguese run place where she goes every week. She invited Savvy to join her because she knew how much she loves horses and that Savannah took lessons in Utah during the summer of 2015 when we went back to the states (and we ourselves don't have a car to get her there). Unfortunately, she has missed out on the last of her lessons. She's begging me to sign her up for lessons when we get back to the states, which unfortunately will cost a lot more money! The consequences from this accident and the cartwheel incident last year, have led Savannah to say a few times now, "You were right mom! I should have listened to you." The lessons have been learned, and will continue to be learned (painfully I'm sure), without me gloating pridefully that I was "right" and "I told you so." :)
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