Calvin and I spent 9.5 hours in emergency a the Children's Hospital yesterday. It was a really long day. We went back because his mysterious leg pain was not getting better and I decided to listen to my friends, my gut and my kid. It was a good.choice.
Once we got to triage I knew that the wait would be a long one because there were a lot of sick babies there and sick babies trump 10 year olds with sore legs. I am okay with that, it is an emergency department after all. It just meant a long wait for me and an impatient 10 year old boy who knew that being back there meant more tests and he was not at all impressed. Once we finally saw a doctor she agreed that it was strange that he was still in that much pain and sent us to ultrasound. She said it sounded muscular and I agreed with her but the whole things seemed strange.
We got to ultrasound and the luckily for us the tech was a smart woman who is good at her job. She looked at his leg where she was told to look and saw nothing. We chatted a bit about what was going on and she went out to read the orders again, then she talked to the doc in radiology and decided to look at his hip ( which was something we had discussed when there on Sunday but he really was saying it was his leg). I knew the moment that she used the mouse to make 2 little marks on the picture that there was indeed something wrong and my kid was not just being a whiner. He has a hip joint full of fluid, it hurts and that is why he can't put weight on it and is limping around like an old man
Why is his hip full of fluid? Well we are not sure. It could be a joint issue, an infection or a virus. They ran blood work and all of it came back negative which in theory means that it is not an infection. It could be the joint issue which involves the growth plate but the x-rays do not show that as the problem. At the moment they are saying that it is a virus and that he should start to get better in the next few days. So we are back to the wait and see game. The good news is that if it is not getting better or getting worse on weekday we can got right to Orthopedics and will not have to go to emergency. If it does get worse we are looking at a MRI, possibly an aspiration of the joint and then surgery. None of which are things that I want him to have to deal with so I am hoping to go with the virus option.
I made him to go to school this morning because the only way that we are going to know if it is getting any worse is if we actually make him move around. Laying on the couch all day does not really tell us anything and besides he was desperate to go to school as they having a carnival day and going to the local movie theater. So I walked him down the lane to the bus and he seemed to be moving ok, he says it hurts but it is going to hurt. As long as he can walk on it we are moving towards healing and the virus theory will be the right one.
I will pick him up at noon as they rest of the school is going skating this afternoon and he is so not going skating. I have to decide by early afternoon if we think that we need to go back to the hospital tomorrow or if we should just wait for our follow up appointment next week.
The drama never ends around here.
7 comments:
I am glad they narrowed it down to the hip. I am so much in sympathy with him- my hip has had problems for a while and after two failed procedures, I am having a hip replacement March 9th. Motrin just doesn't cut it for me! Praying for just a virus!
What a long day! I hope he feels better and has fun at his Carnival day- he deserves it after all that!
Hoping and praying they figure it out soon.
WOW! Hope it gets well on his own quick and I hope his school day goes well.
So glad you got it checked. Keeping fingers crossed for the virus option.
I sure hope it doesn't take long to get better. My little guy had hip issues when he was 4. The ball of his hip joints disintegrated almost completely. The funny thing is, he could almost always walk anyway. Sometimes he was on crutches and sometimes in a lot of pain but he would never stop walking. He was diagnosed with a disease called "Perthes Disease". It took years to heal but he is fine now and he is 10 years old.
I hope that things are just a virus for his sake and that it goes away quickly. Sending up a prayer for him.
Julie
This sounds very familiar. My son and I were there with a very similar issue before Christmas. The orthopedic surgeon said it was likely a virus and the best test was to give him anti-inflammatories (Advil etc). We did and it is an almost miraculous cure. I do not know if they suggested this, if you did not get to ortho if emerg doc would have told you this. And by the way, ortho clinic is no big treat either. Not 9 hours but you can count on being there a loooongg time. And much less comfortable then emergency. Sick Kids needs much work on their clinic functioning. Ellen
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