A girl and her broken leg…

I know some of you have kept up with me in real life and on Facebook since I left the blogosphere…thank you! I am not going to try and catch you up on life since then…but I do have to go back to Dec to get to today.

Dec. 16 – My dad’s birthday, last day of preschool and Kindergarten before Christmas, school Christmas parties… THE DAY SCOUT BROKE HER TIBIA! Yes. On Dec. 16th Scout fell at school and broke her tibia. A “spiral tibia fracture” to be exact. (xray photos below)

spiral tibia fracture

It was a pretty impressive break but we were assured that it was “the best way to break it” and “it will heal and be as good as new.” We were told she would spend about 4 weeks in a cast (from toes to mid thigh) and be good to go. That 4 turned into 5 and we thought when we arrived for that appointment we would go home cast free!

NO.

The cast came off but was replaced with a smaller cast (toes to just below the knee) and we were sent away to wait another 2 weeks. Now we are up to Feb 3rd. SEVEN weeks later (on a Friday) we once again head to the doc in anticipation of being cast free… AND IT WAS GOOD!

There was a lot of celebrating and dancing to be had!!! Sat and Sun Scout took it pretty easy..getting used to walking on two good legs and slowly trying to build up strength. Monday she was back at school cast free! After weeks in a wheelchair and then a walking cast…the freedom was wonderful (for all of us.) The day after Monday…is Tuesday. Tuesday started out fine. Scout even went to ballet after school. She wasn’t up to full performance but was participating and getting more comfortable. After dance we came home and the girls wanted to play in the backyard. AND THUS BEGINS THE END! Scout was hanging from the monkey bars and not being able to go any further she let go to drop to the ground…and when she dropped…

SHE DROPPED. Crumpled really. She couldn’t get up and when I got her up she couldn’t walk. She was freaking out. (I was too.) Of course my first thought was that she broke her leg. Again. Once we got inside and I looked her over I felt like maybe it was more of a sprain to the muscle(s) around her ankle. He leg looked good and touching it didn’t cause her any pain. She could point her foot and wiggle her toes but she could not fully flex her foot. We iced it and gave her Motrin and decided to see how she felt the next day. Wed came and she still wouldn’t walk on it. I was conflicted over taking her to the doctor when she had no swelling or bruising. Steve and I decided to keep her home from school and let her rest it for a day and see if it was just a sprain. Thursday when she got up she could hobble on it some and since there was no school we figured another day of rest would be good. Well…by Thurs night she had stopped walking on it at all.

SO this morning we headed back to SportsMed. The xrays didn’t show any breaks…BUT apparently even at 5 yrs the bones in the foot are still a lot of cartilage and not as dense as mature bones. This means that you can’t totally rely on an xray. The doctor spent a good bit of time doing an extremely thorough physical exam of her foot and concluded that there was a BREAK in the bottom section of the ankle where there is still mostly cartilage like bone. (cue my Mother of the Year acceptance music) The good news is that because we are dealing with the soft stuff…it will heal quickly (like a sprain) the bad news…

Scout is back in a cast.
Really.
Three casts in 8 weeks.
Awesome.