So last night Baguette went into our bedroom, and a little later we heard a slappy thump followed by tears. She was sitting on the floor at the foot of our bed, and sobbing. I picked her up and cradled her and sang to her, and she kept sobbing for at least 15 more minutes. We examined her carefully and couldn’t find any bumps, bruising, or swelling, but she was clearly unhappy and uncomfortable. I was able to coax her to sleep, but she was restless and needed soothing all night.
Until 3:40 a.m., when she was wide awake. After some failed efforts at getting her to fall back asleep, we all got up to watch Sesame Street. She snuggled on the couch with Mr. Sandwich and smiled a bit, but was nowhere near her usual levels of enthusiasm.
She’s home for a few days anyhow, because her day care is closed for some teacher in-service time, and the plan was for Mr. Sandwich to stay home with her (he has more vacation time). So I went to work and called to see how they were doing.
At that point, Mr. Sandwich described it as “a sick, lazy day” with lots of Sesame Street. But later he took her out to play with her water table, and realized that Baguette hadn’t just been relaxing on the couch–she couldn’t stand up on her own.
So he called me and the pediatrician’s office, where we met a couple of hours later. Now, Baguette does not love going to the doctor’s office. She’s had relatively few visits, so she associates the doctor with shots and that weird stomach-poking thing. She wails incessantly at the top of her lungs, both at the nurse and at the doctor. It’s really, really hard to calm her down afterward; there is no calming her down during. But the doctor managed to examine her, and decided that he ought to send her to radiology.
And it turns out she feels exactly the same way about x-ray machines. While she was very–uncharacteristically–sedate in the waiting room, she screamed and screamed the entire time she was on the table to be x-rayed.
The results were normal, so no fracture–good news. And while the screaming was heartbreaking, it completely wore her out, and she fell asleep in my arms before we even got the update from the radiologist. She stayed asleep the entire way home and for several hours afterward.
So it’s likely to be a long night. Tomorrow, her pediatrician may provide another referral–this time to an orthopedist. And we suspect that we have a 2-year-old with a sprained ankle, particularly because now we can see some minor swelling. But she’s also smiling for the first time all day, and that’s an amazing relief.
Photo by microwavedboy, via Flickr.
wow what a relief… i was on the edge of my seat!
It was a very tense day for us!
Awww. Poor Baguette! Petunia had so many tests when we were trying to figure out what was causing her frequent fevers that she got to the point where she’d scream at anyone in scrubs. But when she was about 2.5, we had an appointment with our doctor’s nurse practitioner, who had a toy doctor kit and a stuffed animal in her room, and used those to demonstrate everything she was going to do. Petunia got to play along, too. Ever since, she’s been fine with the doctor, which makes doctor’s visits sooo much easier!
Baguette has the same reaction, I think because she associates doctors and nurses with shots. I tried to explain to her about the xrays, but to no avail.
(((((HUGS))))) you poor mommy, how scary. I am glad she is okay and it’s nothing serious. I know once Dino needed xrays to see if he had pneumonia when he was about a year old and it was horrific for me. He too slept in my arms, exhausted by his own trauma.
Alas, it turns out that she does have a broken leg. Poor little Baguette. No wonder she hasn’t wanted to leave the couch.
What?????? That’s crazy. The poor baby. (((hugs))) Shes a tough one. That’s theone thing I’m most scared of, dino breaking a bone and getting him to the hospital alone.
Man, how scary! But a relief too. Poor little one!
It is a relief to know what’s going on, and to have begun treatment!
Poor baby girl, but poor mama and daddy, too! I hope things are going better for all of you!
Everything’s more dramatic with a cast, but we’re doing okay–thanks!
Poor Baguette! Hope she’s up and around soon!
She’s back to climbing, and we just got back from the pool–I’m really amazed by her ability to determine what she can do and when she needs to crawl (literally).