We were heading out to dinner to celebrate some good news by using a gift card. I tried to put Matthew's fleece on him and he pitched a colossal fit. I sent him to his bed for timeout. A few moments later, Troy came in to lay down the law and threaten to cancel our dinner plans if he didn't shape up. He then left to continue getting ready. Once Matthew had calmed down, I sent him in to discuss with his daddy whether or not we were still going to go out.
He walked into our bedroom.
He walked just fine.
He didn't limp.
He wasn't crying.
All. Was. Well.
Troy continued getting ready, I went into the kitchen, Matthew walked down the stairs.
He walked just fine.
He didn't limp.
He wasn't crying.
All. Was. Well.
A few minutes later I vaguely became aware that he was whining about his foot. At this point he had on rain boots. Troy sat next to him on the floor and offered to change his shoes. After he put tennis shoes on him, Troy picked him up and put him in the car. He didn't whine about his foot anymore.
Until we got to the restaurant. He started sobbing and screaming that his foot hurt. When we asked him to show us where, he pointed to his leg, just under the knee. Troy could not get him to stop crying so I had him send Matthew over to me to see if I could do the trick. When Troy set him down on the ground, he took two steps toward me. He was limping dramatically and looked like he was going to collapse. Needless to say, dinner was kind of a mess. We got him calmed down and he was fine as long as someone was rubbing his leg. Otherwise, he sobbed.
We'd felt all up and down his leg and he didn't seem agitated at all by our poking, prodding and squishing it. But he simply would not bear weight on it. We couldn't remember him doing anything that would warrant such pain. When we got home, I stood him at a chair and asked him to walk to me. He would not. All he would do was stand and scream.
So, obviously, I took him to the doctor.
"Broken until proven otherwise," the doctor told me. He suspects that Matthew has a hairline fracture of the tibia although, no one, including Matthew, can explain how or why.
When asked what happened Matthew simply says, "I don't know." The doctor checked his hip, knee and ankle. He compared the two legs. He massaged Matthew's entire leg and he never once cried. Then he stood him up and watched as Matthew refused to put even an ounce of weight on it.
The doctor recommended putting a splint on it and examining him again on Monday. He said that often times a child's hairline fracture won't even show up in an x-ray but that giving it a couple extra days might help them to see something. So he wrapped Matthew's leg in some sort of mummy material. "Whoa, that's cool!" I said in an attempt to keep my hyper-sensitive child from freaking out.
He stared down at his leg and then shouted, "I have to show my daddy!" What a typical boy, wanting to show off his wounds. Then the doctor put the splint on and wrapped it in an ace bandage like material. Finally, he covered it in a blue sticky material to keep the toddler from ripping the whole thing to shreds.
I asked if I was supposed to keep him off of it. (All the while wondering how, on earth, I was supposed to do that unless Matthew obliged.)
"Nope," the doctor said. "The splint should make it feel a lot better. If he wants to walk on it, let him." By the time we got home, Matthew was walking--albeit a little funny--all over the place. And, of course, posing for pictures.
Now he's filled with Ibuprofen and sound asleep. Hopefully he'll remain that way and won't be miserable all night long. We'd very much appreciate your prayers for quick healing.
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