Tuesday, February 05, 2013

Talia's Fall



At the end of Winter Break, I took the kids sledding with our playgroup and then we went to McD's for lunch. They have an indoor playground and the kids enjoy running through it. Talia is too small to climb up into it, so her "running" tends to be limited. However, since Ky was with he actually helped her up so she could get down the slide. I was okay with this since she enjoys it. Well, I guess I was wrong. I was chatting with friends and keeping an eye on them. Ky had helped her up 2 platforms and Talia suddenly decided she wanted to get down. I watched her lower herself and then he feet missed the platform below and she fell feet first. She bumped her head on the platform and then proceeded to fall into a lower portion of the play area. It was a big fall (about 4 feet), but I wasn't over-concerned (boy was I wrong.) When she had bumped her head, it didn't appear that hard (her head didn't jerk forward or anything). She was laying on the bottom and crying. I asked Ky to help her out (She had fallen into what I call the "pit of despair"--Alaina has only now gotten big enough to climb out of it on her own.) Ky lifted her out, but then Talia continued laying on her stomach crying. I thought she was just upset. (Again--I was wrong. Perhaps this is part of the problem of having multiple children, falls just don't seem to phase you in the same way.) I called for her to come to me (It is very hard for adults to climb into these play areas.) Again she wasn't coming. Ky and a bigger girl helped pull her out to me. When I got her, I checked her head and saw a small red bump--no biggie. I calmed her down and then offered her french fries which she refused (weird!) She then tried to fall asleep in my lap. I then started wondering if maybe she hit her head a bit harder than I realized. My friend Rachel is a nurse, so I asked her opinion. She looked at Talia's eyes and said she looked fine. Talia then napped in my arms for the next 30 minutes. When she awoke she was moody. We packed up and left for home then. When we got home, it was then that I realized she was not moving her right leg. UGH! I called the doc and they had no openings until that evening in Urgent Care. When Rob got home we headed for Urgent Care. Poor Talia. She was so crabby and at this point, I was really worried it was broke. The Doc at Urgent Care also agreed with me. She was sure it was broke. She ordered X-rays. And after a long wait and many more tears the x-rays were done. Upon returning back to the doc, I was drug *anxiously* by the doctor back to radiology. The doctor told me to wait outside the room and went to speak to the radiologist. At this point, I began to panic. I was envisioning social services being called on me because of this severe break in Talia's leg. Several minutes later the doc reappeared and took me back to her office. There she told me that the x-rays did not reveal any breaks and that if Talia wasn't walking by Monday, I should come back. This was the first frustrating part of Talia's journey. I returned home, shared the news with Rob, and put Talia to bed. At 11 that night, I went to check on Talia and discovered her bedding was soaking wet. My first thoughts was that Alaina had dumped her water on her. I called Rob and told her to pick her up so we could change the sheets. He picked her up and then Tali began vomiting. (Note to self--wet bed could mean vomit!) We ran her to the bathroom. For the next 3 hours Talia vomited repeatedly. She was so tired and exhausted. There was very little rest for her. Around 2:30, my brain started to think about everything...fall, leg, bump on head, vomiting (the fact that she didn't even cry the first time she vomited in bed)....I went downstairs and called the clinic. The instructed us to go to the ER. So off we went. We dropped off Ky & Laina at our friends Ben & Crystal and drove with Talia puking to the ER. When we got there, Talia's blood pressure was elevated and her heart rate was high. She was crabby and clearly in pain with her leg. The docs looked at her head briefly, but could not find a bump so they focused on her leg which they figured was the cause of everything. They gave her anit-nausea meds and prepared her for possible IV's to help with fluids and pain meds if necessary. It was a very long 5 hours...They took additional x-rays of her hip and still were unable to find a fracture. Even an Orthopedic Doc came and basically said--we see no breaks, we don't have any reason to believe we should cast her--go home and if she isn't walking by Monday see an Orthopedic Pediatrician. So off we left with a diagnosis of "Right Leg Pain" and they assumed the vomiting was associated to the pain she was in. To their credit, by the time we were discharged, Talia seemed to be feeling much better and began sleeping. That day was Friday--and it was an off day. We picked up the big kids and went home. We plopped Ky & Alaina in front of the DVD player and Rob and I went upstairs with Talia and slept for the remainder of the morning. By early afternoon, Ky began complaining of being sick and wanting to puke. I really need to give Ky more credit--because I doubted him, or maybe I just didn't want to believe him--I was already dealing with one kid with problems, I sure didn't need another. Well sure enough, Ky then began to vomit. I was then dealing with a crying baby from pain and frustration of not being able to move and a crying boy who was over the toilet. EGADS! You know the saying "When it rains, it pours"? EXACTLY! We survived that day--and were happy to head to bed that night to try to make up for our lack of sleep. The next morning Alaina woke us up nice and early like usual. We sat down for breakfast and Talia began barfing all over again! This whole time she did not have a fever, so we knew that she did not have what Ky had (and the ER confirmed this the day before.) I was pretty much done with all the puke and called Urgent Care. A nurse there recommended that I should go back to the ER. I wasn't convinced that that was going to necessarily help us. At this point, we were concerned that her bumped head had more to do with her vomiting than pain (we were keeping her pain meds.) I was able to get us an appointment at Urgent Care. Thankfully our friend Crystal said she could come over and watch Alaina and we took Ky (who still had a fever and was angry about missing his basketball game) with us. At Urgent Care the Doc told us that Talia needed a CT scan of her head. Her puking without warning (she wouldn't cry or anything she would just vomit) was a concern that her bumped head could be more serious. So off we went back to the ER. This time we were more prepared for the long wait. We brought food, games, and our tablet to entertain. After a LONG wait--the doc came and told us that he thought Talia had a concussion--due to her lack of appetite, vomiting, etc...however he wanted us to decide if we really thought a CT scan was necessary. He told us that to give a CT scan to Talia she would have to be sedated and then her brain would be exposed to the equivalent of 200 x-rays. He said the concern with giving CT scans to a child this young is that it increased the chances of cancer and then if she had to have another scan in the future it would further increase things for her. The doc said that the chances of her having a huge bleed that would need to be drained was slim. He also stated that if it was severe we would see other signs--listlessness, being out of it, etc... He said that they may discover a small bleed, but then they would just observe her overnight and release her (somthing we could do at home.) At this point, Rob and I decided to forgo the CT scan. It just didn't seem worth it and we had no indications that it was severe. Once again, the doc said to see an orthopedic doc on Monday if she wasn't walking. From there things calmed down. On Sunday night, Talia crawled a couple of times. On Monday morning, we were immediately called by our clinic and informed that they were trying to get Talia an appointment immediately at the Orthopedic doc. After a whole lot of mumbo jumbo an appointment was made for Tuesday morning. I would like to say that that Tuesday we got answers--but we didn't. Talia had more x-rays done and they did not find anything. The doc said her best guess was that Talia had a non-displaced fracture and that is why they couldn't find anything. She said that toddlers bones heal quickly though and that if she wasn't walking in 10 days - 2 weeks, we should bring her back. Today is day 10. Talia will pull to standing, but not for long before she begins crying. It is clear her leg hurts her. And at this point it is pretty much definite that it must be a facture since a muscle or tendon would not cause this much pain 10 days later. I am hoping she will begin walking in the next few days or we will be returning to the doc (*UGH!*). I have to say that throughout all of this Talia has had a great demeanor (with exception of the last few days. Now I think she is just done and wants to be walking again.) So what have I learned--McD's is evil...well actually I already knew that. I guess this has been a good reminder to me that falls can be worse than they appear. And perhaps Ky just needs to leave Talia alone until she can climb on her own. So that is our exciting last week and a half. I will update Talia's condition in the next blog.  HA HA!!  Next blog---(guess i forgot to publish this one! oops!)  Talia started walking on Day 12!  Yeah!  Below is  video of her walking.  You can see that it hurt her, but she did it.  Now she is just fine!  WHEW!  We are so happy that everything worked out well!



  

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