She's been CASTED (again)

I wish I were posting to inform you that Gracie has been casted in her debut film... but we are talking about the other kind of cast, the immobilizing type. When Gracie learned that she had to have a cast put on she cried and cried. Not because she was scared of the unknown. Not because this was new to her. Oh no, she cried because at the age of 5 this is her fourth experience having a cast on. "What?! Are you kidding me?!"- you ask. I wish I were. She knows far too well about the discomfort, the itching, and the limited activities. Here is the story of the latest injury...



On March 30th, Gracie was at our neighbor's house playing with her friend, Sarah, and jumping on their trampoline. She came home after a while and was mad. She said, "Jacob (the older brother) was throwing bouncy balls at us while we were on the trampoline. He hit me in the ankle and it hurt". I asked her what kind of bouncy balls and she described those little rubber balls that you get in the gumball machines. So I said, "Oh Gracie, you're fine. You'll probably get a little bruise, but you're going to be ok". Anyway, throughout the week Gracie would mention, "My ankle hurts". OK, OK, OK, enough with the ankle. I looked at it... no bruise. She was walking just fine, and she is VERY dramatic. So, I honestly didn't give it a second thought. Well one week and one day later we were going out to Tuachan to watch Grant's school choir perform. He had come straight from baseball practice and we were running a little late. I dropped him off at the entrance and then Gracie and I went to park... a mile away!!! Gracie had fallen asleep in the car on the way there. I woke her up when I parked and she was kinda cranky. I was trying to hurry so we wouldn't miss the beginning of the performance and Gracie was just dilly-dallying behind me. I turned around and told her to run. She started to run and as she stepped down on her left foot, she buckled under her weight and started to cry. I figured she just wanted me to carry her, which I did. During Grant's performance, Gracie needed to go to the bathroom. I told her we needed to hustle so we didn't miss the ending. As she started to skip toward the bathroom, again she buckled as she put her left foot down. Again she started to cry. I asked her what was wrong and she said her ankle hurt. Later that night, at Garrett's baseball game, I began watching her a little more closely. She could walk just fine, but she couldn't run, jump, or skip without really favoring her left foot. I told Russ about it and he had her run to him. Again, she buckled and cried. (I know we are horrible parents! But we were really just trying to determine what was wrong!) The next morning I took her to the pediatrician. He looked at it for about 10 seconds, had her stand on her toes (which she could do), the he had her stand on her heels and pull her toes off of the ground (which she could not do). He said that she had sprained her ankle and pointed to an area on top of her foot, right where the leg starts bending into the foot. "Just give her some Motrin. If it is still bothering her in a week, bring her back in and we will x-ray it". Now give me my $65 and get outta here. (I really do like our pediatrician, I think he is very good). That afternoon we went to Grant's baseball game. She hobbled around and tried to get her to sit as much as possible. That night when she took off her socks and shoes, I noticed that on the left foot her leg was swollen up above her ankle bone. You could see every line from her sock on that foot, but it wasn't that way on the right. I started feeling around and when I got to one area and pushed (not even hard), she started screaming and crying. I called Russ in and he noticed the same things I did. The next afternoon, she was riding her bike and her foot slipped off the pedal and hit her in the ankle. She came hopping in the house... absolutely hysterical. You would have thought someone was chopping off her leg with a dull ax. It took almost 40 minutes for her to stop crying. After that, she couldn't even walk without limping. At Garrett's baseball game that night she just limped constantly. Her leg again was very swollen, still very tender to the touch, and she was mostly just hopping on her right leg. On Friday, we took her back to the pediatrician. Our normal doc was off, so we saw one of his partners. She said Gracie's soft tissues were full (swollen) and that the injury was now 12 days old and needed some further examination. We had x-rays taken and nothing showed up. We had a CT scan performed and nothing showed up. The doctor was "perplexed". She said Gracie needed to be off of her leg and that she was going to order an immobilizing boot. The doc called to order one and they don't make them in Gracie's size. So she put Gracie in a cast and on crutches for three weeks. All that and we still don't really know what is wrong. The doctor said if she is still having problems after we take the cast off then she will order an MRI. I, too, am perplexed and frustrated. Hopefully, this will allow her to heal and no further tests will need to be performed.