I'm making a place to jot down my thoughts, which are frankly overwhelming. On Tuesday night I was cleaning up the backyard, hosing out some ice chests we used for our party on the fourth of July. The boys were both playing in the backyard while I worked. I heard a loud thump behind me and saw Desi had slipped on the wet concrete. Orion and I both ran to him, the poor baby was screaming. I got him calmed down after maybe ten minutes, then set him and O up with a movie. Here they are around 7 P.M. on Tuesday night.
You can see the baby isn't happy, but he's calm. About an hour later I picked him up from the couch to get him ready for bed. He screamed like I hurt him when I put his PJ's on. That's when I realized that I hadn't seen him walk since the fall. We got right in the car and headed to urgent care, which was about to close for the night. They took Xrays of his ankle, leg, hip and pelvis. The doctor looked at them and said the wasn't a break but she'd flag them for radiology to review first thing. Honestly, I felt like everyone was waiting on me so they could go home. It was 11 P.M. by this point. By the next morning he wasn't moving his left leg at all, not even a kick if you tickled him. This is with Motrin for his "sprain". So, after talking to the advice nurse I took back to urgent care. This time they were dismissive. Every person there said the xrays had been reviewed again and it was nothing. There was a whole lot of implying I was an overly nervous mom. I left urgent care for the second time with no answer. We headed straight to the E.R. at that point.
The third doctor took my concerns seriously but also didn't find an answer. He got blood drawn looking for transient synovitis. And (this is the best part) we got an appointment on Friday with an Orthopedic specialist.
Thursday he was a little better. He crawled short distances. This lined up with it being transient synovitis. So we thought we'd keep the appointment but it was probably just swelling.
On Friday we met with a specialist, expecting him to confirm the other diagnosis. Instead, he found a hairline fracture high up on Desi's femur. The really bad news is the treatment for this kind of break on a toddler is a Spica Cast, taking up most of his lower body.
This must have been so scary. From the fall, to realizing he wasn't walking...I believe that mothers instinct & persistence is what helped Desi finally get diagnosed properly. Something was obviously not right...and you know your baby better than any doctor or nurse. Ugh...so it was 3 days till he got the correct diagnosis? And its a amazing that Desi knew instinctively not to try to walk which would have made his fracture worse.
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