The Polygraph
We arrived by 3 like they asked. Then we sat there for over an hour, both of us exhausted dosing on and off. They called Matt in first, then me. The officer doing the test asked me some questions and asked me how much sleep I had had the night before. I told him maybe 20 minutes. He told me that the test really shouldn’t be taken if I was up for more than 24hrs, but they wanted to get the test out of the way. During the test when he asked me to intentionally lie my lines were off the charts. He told me that tells him that I am an extremely honest person. I told him that makes sense because I hate lying and am not good at it. Then he went through some of the type of questions he was going to ask. Then we started the test. The way it happens is nothing like the movies. They ask you a question then you answer then they sit there for what seems like an eternity. Well for someone with ADD, your mind wanders. I tried to stay focused on Mason and just couldn’t. I forget the wording of the question but essentially it was I responsible for Mason’s injury. No, then my mind went off, but I trusted Rejeanna I wasn’t able to protect him so ya kind of. Have you ever intentionally hurt a family member… Mason No…. but I have said hurtful things to my siblings and my parents does that count. There was that one time my dad slapped me so I punched him, so ya that my definitely count…. No it is Mason no I never hurt Mason. All the questions went this way. Not to mention I had to try to focus on staying still because I can’t stay still because of my ADD. I’m always moving some body part, but for this I had to sit perfectly still and my ADD is just amplified when I’m tired. It was horrible. I knew I didn’t fare well on the test. But I was too afraid to speak up, I figured I wasn’t allowed to because the test had already started, so I didn’t mention any of this to the detective administering the test.
Anyway so they send me back in the waiting area along with Matt, after another half hour or so, they came back and told us that we both failed the test. They said it wasn’t the results they wanted, and they did not believe Mason was in any danger with us. Given that we barely slept the night before, they felt the results weren’t accurate. They said they wanted someone to stay the night to take care of Mason and wanted us to sleep. They told us they would call us the next day to come in for another test. We agreed.
Some Justice for Mason
We got back to the hospital and Mason was being discharged, we told his parents what happened, and Matt’s mom stated she would stay the night so we could sleep. We were waiting to be called in, but the call never came. We finally called the social worker around 3 or 4 in the afternoon (we did not have the new detective’s name), she told us that we did not need to be questioned further, and that a second test would not be needed. She came to our home, and told us that they questioned Rejeana, and her story did not make sense to them. She told us that we didn’t even qualify to take the test when it was administered to us, and that they did not think we had any involvement with his injury. She told us that they asked Rejeana for a lie detector test, but she couldn’t do it that day but agreed to come in Friday (it was Wednesday) after her grandfathers funeral.
We kept in contact with the Social Worker. The following Monday or Tuesday she called my husband and told him that Rejeana had gotten a lawyer and refused to take the polygraph. She had stopped cooperating with them at that point. On Monday they got a search warrant for her electronics and to search her premises. She had said that they found open live wires upstairs where they were doing constructions, but they did not find any on her phone or computer about the break, which is what they were looking for. With the dangers they found at her house, and the seriousness of the break, her daycare was temporarily shut down and license suspended.
We were glad, we felt it was some justice for him. We didn’t really focus on her though, our focus was Mason and getting him better. At night he woke up crying every couple of hours, during the day he would cry because he wanted to be held. We were instructed to not really hold him for the first week until his first follow-up with the orthopedic doctor. We were told wait at least a week. The worst feeling in the world is seeing your baby look at you crying wanting to be held because he was hurt and didn’t feel well, and all you could do is offer a hand. Sometimes it would soothe him, sometime he would grab our hand and bring it up to his face to cuddle, other times it wasn’t enough. There were a couple of times I just couldn’t stand it and held him very carefully. He would instantly stop crying. Prior to the break I held him all the time, he loved his momma and daddy and was just a really cuddly little boy. It was absolutely heart wrenching. Through it all though he would still giggle and give you the biggest smiles. So I at least knew his spirit wasn’t broken.
Doctor Follow-ups
The one week follow up came. The x-ray tech was absolutely awful she quickly grabbed his leg and pulled it down the exact motion that the doctor had mentioned broke his leg in the first place. Mason screamed out in pain. We were pissed, and told the orthopedic specialist she was way too rough with him. I have a degree as a vet tech and have restrained/positioned cats, dogs, guinea pigs, and even a bat once, and have never had to be as rough as she was on my son’s broken leg. I’m actually convinced she re-broke it. My focus was on my baby though and trying to comfort him. Needless to say the orthopedic specialist wasn’t happy either, and sent us home with more pain meds for him. He gave us the ok to hold him, but keep it to a minimum, and he said his bone was positioned well. So after that I was at least able to hold him when our hand just wouldn’t cut it.
Mason had his follow-up x-rays and Exam with Dr Hudson. We didn’t know it when we first met him, but he actually specializes in child abuse cases. He said nothing was found on the x-rays. They also asked how we were doing. I broke down crying. I told him and the nurse that I felt that we felt guilty that we couldn’t protect them. How I felt so guilty because of all the things we did changing his diaper getting him dressed, bending pulling the leg, when we did know. How much pain that must have caused him. How we felt guilty for not taking him straight in that if we suspected an injury we wouldn’t have waited. How we should have looked for an injury. They of course tried to reassure us that it wasn’t our fault, and we couldn’t have known.
Finally, 4 weeks had passed, and it was time for another follow-up with the orthopedic doctor. The doctor was surprised at how fast his leg was healing. The bones were knitted enough and there was a ton of extra calcium in his leg waiting to knit more. The dirty almost black harness could finally come off. He said to be careful with him for the next 3-4 weeks, and then he should be fine. He said to bring him back in 6 months (so when he was 10 months old).
By that point he was a little porker. My breast milk was spitting out the fat like crazy, it was so fatty it came out chunky. He looked fat, but the important part was his bone was healing at lightning speed and my boy was finally healing.
His leg did slow him down for a bit. We didn’t do belly time with him again until he was almost 5 months old. He learned quick how to roll again. He would roll on his back within minutes of being put on his belly starting at 1 month. It took him a while to relearn the skill and he would only roll to the right for the longest time. He didn’t start lifting his left and grabbing his left leg until a month and half after the right. We did get an assessment done and he was a little behind, but he was improving everyday so we decided against any therapy for him. By 9 months he was crawling, and by his first birthday he was walking. He is 14 months now and running around like crazy. For that I am grateful it doesn’t have seem to affected him. I am thankful he was only in her care for 3 weeks, and I’m thankful it didn’t affect him permanently. Well except he hates being on his back now after laying on it 24/7 for 2 months, so diaper changes are a challenge.
At 10 months old he had the follow-up with the orthopedic doctor. His leg healed beautifully. It was slightly crooked but the doctor once again assured us it will reshape and straighten out as he asked. He was cruising around like crazy by then so we really weren’t too worried. The doctor asked that we bring him back again in a year, so when he is almost 2. He just wants to make sure that the bones are growing evenly. Otherwise the doctor thought he looked great.