Last night Logan hopped down off his chair declaring he was done with dinner. He ran off down the hall to retrieve something or other he wanted to show Daddy and as he did so he said "ow." We asked if he was ok. He brushed us off annoyed at being questioned. He turned to trot back off down the hall to retrieve yet another thing. And that's when I noticed he was limping. Logan wanted to go out back and play baseball with Daddy. He wasn't happy to be told he couldn't go because his leg was hurting. He insisted it wasn't. And he tried to show us how much it wasn't by running. He fell to his left side.
He said it was his knee. And then it was in his calf. And then his foot. He told us the pain was shooting down his leg from top to bottom but only if he ran so if he walked to play ball it'd be ok. Instead we looked closely at his leg. No noticeable swelling. No bruising. We gave him some Tylenol. We gave him a warm bath. We put him to bed after stories.
He woke up Saturday morning and immediately announced that his leg hurt. He grabbed his left hip. He got out of bed to walk and started to crumble to his side when he tried to put weight on the leg. We carried him down the hall. We called the Pediatrician's answering service. They paged the doctor on call. Logan slid off the chair we had left him in and tried walking again. He did, but with a limp. The Ped called back. She asked us to bring him into the office for an eval. She thought we'd wait too long at the ER and that we could get the x-rays done at another place this morning. Meg went to Grandma and Papa's and we went to the doctor's office.
To calm Logan I told him how the doctor's we'd see were like Matt Medic - the Rescue Hero who is, surprise, surprise, a doctor. He told me he needed to get Matt Medic now to be brave. I told him we could talk about it. He said "Hey, I have an idea, let's talk about it now!" We didn't.
The doctor arrived and began poking at Logan's leg and watching his face for clues of pain. He told her where it hurt. He told her when it started hurting last night. He then showed her his mosquito bite on his right ankle and told her his leg hurt there also. I don't think she was nearly as amused by that as I was. She wrote an order for an x-ray. She talked about going to see the Orthopedic Specialist next week. (The one that we see for Megan's neck who I find to be arrogant and irritating.) She told us to first try the x-ray place in town for an appointment today and if that didn't work - head to the ER.
We ended up at the ER. Now, to those that don't know, the hospital in our area has undergone a huge renovation. What used to be the ER entrance is now Out-Patient. The emergency department has new digs. We, however, parked in the wrong spot and headed to the old spot because we came into the complex at an entrance not conducive to getting to the right spot. (Got that?) We asked the security guards what the best way to get down to the emergency dept was. They sent Bruce back to the parking garage to move his car to the "free" ER lot and then one of them escorted Logan and me to the right place through twists and turns in the building. The guard looked at me carrying Logan and told us to wait. He got Logan a wheel chair to ride in. Logan loved that part. He also got a pack of crayons and a new coloring book all about the hospital. As we traveled down a floor to the right area of the building, Logan chirped "Wow! I've never ridden on a wheel chair in an elevator before! This is fun!" The security guards were amused by him. Logan then told us all that he didn't want an X-ray because it would hurt. The very nice older guard leaned down to talk to him. He showed Logan his badge and told him that the hospital took his picture and put it on the badge and it didn't hurt one bit. He said that the X-ray would be just like that picture - wouldn't hurt. AND then he said that if anyone did hurt Logan, he was to come find this guard and let him know who did it, because they'd have to answer to the guard. Logan liked him a lot.
They checked us in quickly and moved us right back to the Pediatric section of the department. Logan got to sit up on a bed shaped like a fire truck. He liked that part too. He was restless, understandably. The doctor arrived quickly to evaluate Logan's leg. Logan calmed when he realized he could lay back and watch Sports Center during the exam. I kid you not. The doctor agreed to x-rays but said he didn't expect to find anything wrong on them. Another nurse arrived to ask more questions. She showed Logan a chart with different faces on them and asked him to point to the one that most looked like how he felt when his leg hurt. He pointed to the crying face - 10 on a scale of 1-10 in regards to pain. I asked him if it really hurt so much he wanted to cry. I told him it was ok if it did, but that the nurse wanted to know how bad he hurt. Logan looked at the faces again and pointed to the smiling face. "I'm a happy boy!" he said. I told the nurse Logan was more like a 4 or 5 on the scale. She grinned. She then gave him little hospital slipper socks. He loves them too. We got to keep them. He thinks it's the neatest thing. In fact, as he rode, once again perched in the wheel chair, from the exam room to the x-ray lab in his nifty new skidded teal socks and his hospital gown, he showed everyone we passed those socks.
He was terrified of the x-ray. I stood behind him rubbing his head and hugging him. We told him it was ok to be scared. The tech told him it was ok to be scared but she promised not to hurt him. I told him it was ok to cry, but he said no, he just wanted to hug. He made it through three pictures and then one more to replace the fuzzy knee image from where he had moved a bit too much. He was so happy to be off that table and back in his nifty wheel chair for another ride. He got to stand in the doorway of his exam room with Dad and see the pictures of his bones as the doctor viewed them on the LCD monitor in the hall. He thought that was pretty neat too. He sat back on his fire truck bed and started in on the "can we go yet?" mantra. I told him we were almost done and if he was just patient a little bit longer we could stop at Toys R Us for Matt Medic. I figured he'd earned it with all that he'd endured thus far.
The doctor came in and told us the x-rays were clean. No breaks. No bone damage. Nothing structural in that regard. "It's just a sprain and some bruising." We're to give him Motrin or Advil (there goes mom out to the supermarket to find the chewable variety!) and encourage him to rest it as much as we can but to follow his lead because kids, hey, they bounce back quickly. He'll know, the doctor said, when it's hurting and he can't use it.
When the third nurse of the morning came into to discharge us, Logan asked her to take off his "annoying" hosptial bracelets. She told him she didn't have scissors, then whispered to us that they got mad if the nurses took the bracelets off people. Logan showed her his arm and said "See, it says L-O-G-A-N, Logan. That's me, but I don't like these bracelets they annoy me. Please take them off."
She looked at his chart and said "Is this chart right? He's 38 months?" I confirmed it. She stared at him and then said he was impressive. He fiddled with his wrist bands ignoring her. She offered him an ice pop. He said "No thank you. I'm ok." She commented on how poliet.
Logan got his new Rescue Hero. It came with a video. He sat in the recliner - feet up - and watched it. He sat through lunch. He played with Meg and me without running. He played computer games. He conned us into taking him outside onto his swing. He snuck in some baseball but with the caveat that he'd hit and we'd run for him. He walks tonight with only a slight drag on the left. Something I'm not sure we'd notice if we hadn't spent the morning getting it checked out. Logan says he had an "interesting adventure" today but he doesn't want any more x-rays.
Let's hope he keeps to that!
No comments:
Post a Comment