Accident Prone

My brother was an accident prone kid. He had stitches more times than anyone else I know and broke a few bones, too. He was in the hospital to the point that it became fairly routine. We tell the story about the time he got stitches in his head, and his only concern was that they be purple. The nurse was rather surprised by this.

Most of his injuries make good stories now. None of them caused permanent damage, and a lot of them were just so weird. A kid at camp throws a rock in the air and it comes down right on his head. He catches a football that snaps his thumb back and breaks it. He stands up after getting a vaccination and faints, knocking his head on a metal table. It's all just so absurd.

And it looks like Gavin is on track for the same kind of life. What we thought was Nursemaid's elbow was not Nursemaid's elbow. On Wednesday morning it was clear that Gavin's arm was still hurting him. He'd barely moved it at all since Monday evening and was becoming surprisingly adept at doing things one-handed. We decided to take him to the pediatrician for a second look.

She referred us to orthopedic pediatrician and was able to get us an appointment for later the same day. By the time we got there, he was beginning to use his arm again, and we were thinking that maybe it was unnecessary after all. But they took some x-rays and did an examination, and it was clear that the elbow was still bothering him.

The x-ray didn't turn up much, because toddler joints are still mostly cartilage. But combined with the exam, the doctor decided he had either a fracture or a bruise on the cartilage. It'll heal quickly, but as he gets more comfortable with it, there's a bigger risk of re-injury. So the doctor recommended we put him in a cast for a week to give his arm a chance to heal.

It's unfortunate that this lines up with his and Kevin's trip to the beach. With a cast on he can't get in the water and he can barely play in the sand. But it's not like Gavin knows the difference. Kevin is much more disappointed than he is.

Gavin didn't like having the cast put on, but once it was there he cheered right up. Now that his arm is being held immobile I think it's hurting him less. And he's a bit too oblivious to really be bothered by the cast. Every now and then he asks what it is, but then he goes back to whatever he was doing.

I'm still not sure how he got hurt so badly. It seems like that he whacked his elbow in addition to what we saw on Monday. But who knows? Maybe he'll end up being just as accident prone as his uncle. Or maybe this will just be a blip and he'll go on to have a normal childhood with a minimum of extra doctor's visits. Either way, this story will quickly become part of Gavin's personal legend, trotted out for new friends and girlfriends for the rest of his life.

Urgent Care

We got another first out of the way last night: our first after hour's visit to urgent care.

Everything was going well. Gavin was being an exceptionally cute toddler, and I was enjoying a glass of wine and looking forward to reading once he was in bed. Gavin has this new favorite game where he lays down on the floor and I cover him with a blanket and then he figures out how to get out from under the blanket. It's amazing, and I like it almost as much as he does, because I just have to sit on the couch. (As opposed to the run-down-the-driveway game, which involves running up and down the driveway over and over.)

So, it was a pretty great birthday. And then we were getting ready to put Gavin in his bath and Kevin picked him up and Gavin just started crying. And crying and crying. Clearly whatever had hurt him was not getting better.

We got on the phone to his pediatrician who said it sounded like nursemaid's elbow - a pretty common occurrence among toddlers who are still more bendy than firm. The ligament gets trapped between the bones of the elbow joint. It definitely sounds painful.

The doctor said it often fixes itself, or we could come in in the morning or we could take him to an urgent care. Well, when your kid's crying and there's something you can do to make it better, you do it. So we hopped in the car and headed to urgent care. By now, Gavin was a lot calmer, even smiling and laughing with me in the backseat. Though he still wasn't moving his left arm.

The urgent care doctor was great. She let me hold Gavin while she examined his shoulder and elbow. She held up his Elmo doll to make sure he could move it. And she sent us on our way with instructions to give him some Tylenol and alternate warm and cold compresses (for pain and swelling, respectively).

Gavin fell asleep pretty soon after we got home, but Kevin and I were all keyed up and stayed up for a while longer. And then, of course, as soon as the pain medication wore off, Gavin was up and crying again. This was about half an hour before my alarm went off, so we just pulled him into bed with us. Cuddling was enough to get him to sleep for a while longer.

He still wasn't really using his arm this morning, though I think that's just soreness. If it's still bugging him tonight or tomorrow morning, we'll take him in to his regular pediatrician. The urgent care doctor gave him a pretty thorough examination, so I'm pretty sure nothing is broken or still dislocated. It'll probably just take some time to heal completely.

Hooray Insurance

The summer I turned 21, I sprained my ankle pretty badly. Due to a horrific combination of alcohol, stilettos, and old ballerina instincts, I attempted to leap over a group of people who were between me and the bathroom. I did not properly land the grand jete and was subsequently carried to my room. Having grown up dancing, I was no stranger to sprained ankles, so I wrapped it, iced it, kept it elevated, and mostly got on with my life.

But a week later it wasn't even beginning to feel better. I knew I had to get it looked at by a doctor. This presented a problem. It's not that I wasn't insured, but I was insured by through dad who lived in Colorado while I was spending my summer in California. I couldn't find a single doctor in network; even the urgent care wouldn't see me. I finally spent a long and boring afternoon in the ER only to learn that my ankle wasn't broken. All I could do at that point was wait for it to heal on its own.

It's probably no surprise that I continue to re-injure this ankle on a fairly regular basis.

Flash forward to this past week, when I hurt my knee thanks to a poorly executed squat at the gym.

Like past injuries, I wrapped it, iced it, and assumed that it would eventually get better. But Kevin insisted I go see a doctor because knee injuries can be really bad. I'd neglected to actually find a primary care physician since moving to Virginia, so I also had to set up a new patient appointment somewhere. It turns out that this was all super easy, and I was able to schedule everything for Thursday afternoon.

My knee oscillated between feeling better and worse, mostly being fine in the morning and getting worse as the day progressed. In the days leading up to my appointment I became convinced that I had seriously hurt myself and was doing my best to not move my knee at all. By the time I got to the doctor's office, I was fretting over the possibility of surgery.

My doctor determined that I had likely torn a ligament and relayed this information like it was no big deal. She referred my to a physical therapist and told me that I needed to start using my knee instead of just keeping it wrapped and still. I'm now on an Advil regimen to deal with the pain instead of trying to prevent the pain from happening at all.

I start physical therapy next week, and I'm hoping it doesn't take too long to go through it all. The best part is that I don't think I'll need to pay out of pocket for any of this. There was no copay at the doctor's office, and I don't think there will be one for the physical therapy either, which is nice. Even if I do need to pay, I doubt it will be much. I'm really glad that I have health insurance and will be able to have this injury treated properly. Maybe now my knees won't give out completely when I'm 50.