It started out like any other evening. Davis and Chris were playing in the family room while I was working on some stuff on the computer. Davis is not one to take risks, but he is one to climb around and be a boy. He's always climbing on the couch or his little chair or the closest person...
Anyhow, so last night he and Chris were doing their usual playing. Davis thinks it's Hilarious when someone pretends to be asleep and then he will "wake them up" and he just explodes into laughter. So Chris was pretending to be asleep, Davis turned to pull out a couch pillow with which to "wake Chris up" when he took a misstep and kind of tumbled off the couch.
Which has happened a million and one times in this home.
He landed and kind of whimpered a little bit, but nothing shocking. Chris was right there and did the "shake it off" routine as is status quo for "booboos". But something in that whimper made me get up and go check on him, too. He was okay, we thought maybe he had just had the wind knocked out of him, and we kind of cuddled for a couple of minutes. Finally, he was acting just fine so I said, "Let's go get some milk." Chris headed off to the kitchen, I stood Davis up and then he just CRUMPLED to the ground in a little mound. It was so pitiful. But the Athletic Trainer in me said, oh that was nothing, stand him up again. So I did. And he crumpled again. This time Chris saw it happen, too.
So, I then went into trainer mode. I checked that there was no leg deformity, I checked motor and sensory, I checked for hip dislocation, I check capillary refill, I checked hips, knees, ankles and toes. Nothing. But he still just wouldn't put ANY weight on it.
Chris and I kind of just watched him for about 10 minutes, thinking surely it was a sprain, or strain, or bruise and that he would put weight on it soon. No such luck. So we headed to the Immediate Care Center (which is about 1 minute from the house) for some Xrays.
The doc there was, well, not experienced w/Children. And after some A/P and Lateral views from his hip to his toe, he said the ONE THING I was fearing... "I think I might see a wedge in his growth plate." He then said we needed to get to Kosairs (the Children's Hospital downtown) right away.
I got on the phone and called up the prayer warriors and we headed downtown.
We got in fast and the doc said to us that they had already looked at the Xrays while we were in transit. She didn't see what that first doc saw (THANK HEAVENS!!) and was pretty sure that what was going on was something called a toddlers fracture. She said 90% of kids who came into the hospital w/this sort of injury mechanism and who would not put weight on the extremity were the ones who had this sort of fracture. She wanted more Xrays to be sure.
By this time it was 10:30 pm... Two and a half hours past the latest this child has EVER been awake in his life. So the meltdown ensued. But really, for the pain, strangeness, worry, lack of drink, lack of binkie and fact that his parents seemed to be TORTURING him, he did pretty well.
So, the Xrays came back and the doc came in. The Xrays showed nothing remarkable. But the doc was not surprised by that... she said that kids this age are growing SO FAST and are so pliable right now that often this sort of fracture won't show up until a couple of days after it happens once new bone is already laid down. So, she was calling it the "toddler's fracture" or a spiral fracture of his Tibia. That meant a Long Leg Cast for 3 to 6 weeks. So, she casted him from his toe to his hip and we will now follow up with a pediatric orthopedist on Monday for our next course of action and repeat Xrays.
We got home around 1:30am and he went RIGHT to bed. He slept until 9am and actually seemed pretty good. He's just on Tylenol for pain right now and he's not really crying or anything too often. He gets REALLY frusterated when he can't get where he wants to go, but he's already figuring out how to maneuver with his big old leg. We found one of his old walkers that he's using now and I'm thinking that will help him over the next couple of days.
So, Here are some pictures of his Big Green Cast...
I'm sure many more blogs are to come on this topic. Poor kid.
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