An All-Too Exciting Sunday

Nicholas seems to have pulled a muscle in his right leg, or some other minor injury.


This in and of itself isn't so interesting, but I wanted to start with the conclusion of the forthcoming story to prevent any panic as you read.


Yesterday morning Nicholas was having a lot of trouble walking. When he first got up he tried to walk and fell after a couple feet. It looked like maybe he had tripped on his pants, so I pulled them up. He tried again and promptly fell down again. Loving mother that I am, I teased him. Then he stood up and tried again, fell again, and was looking at his feet with a look that can best be described as annoyance. Hmm, this is weird. He tried a couple more times, fell promptly each time, and was looking at his feet as though trying to figure out what was wrong.


Joe came up with the feasible theory that maybe Nicholas' foot had fallen asleep. So we put him up in his highchair and gave him breakfast.


After breakfast, we put him down, he set off excitedly, and promptly fell again. He kept trying with no success. And then he started not even being able to get himself up to standing on his own. He'd get into a tripod and then when he went to push off and shift all his weight to his feet he would fall to sitting.


At this point we were genuinely concerned. Not panicked, but definitely concerned. We felt his legs and feet. No bumps, no redness, no obvious splinters. He didn't seem in pain, either as we examined him or even when he was trying to walk. We tickled the bottoms of his feet to make sure he had feeling in them. Yep, he laughed and pulled them away. He was in good spirits and mostly just seemed annoyed that he wasn't able to run off and make trouble.


Joe had to cantor at church so I took Nicholas in to the doctor. (Yes, our doctor's office has hours on Sunday mornings. They are just that awesome. I called at 8:30 on a Sunday morning and was able to see a doctor at 9am, for the normal cost, no paperwork, and without dealing with the ER. See why we were excited not to have to move?) The doctor examined him, watched him try to walk, watched him crawl, and came up with the theory that the most likely possibility was that he had what is called a "toddler's fracture" low on his right leg. Given her description, this seemed entirely likely, especially with all his recent climbing and falling (not connected, almost all of his falls stem from walking/running rather than climbing). So off to the hospital we went for x-rays.

I will spare you the details, but x-rays was rather traumatic. I don't know if Nicholas was in pain from how the techs were holding his legs or just really disturbed that they were holding him tightly and not letting him move, but he was really upset. The only other time I've seen him that upset was when he had to get blood drawn. It was awful.

Anyway, the x-ray came up negative and I was actually disappointed because the way the doctor had been talking a fracture actually seemed like a better option than some of the others and I was forseeing a week of all sorts of different testings and doctors. Not to mention the sheer fear of knowing something was wrong but not knowing what it was or how to fix it.

But then we were at my parents' house that afternoon and Nicholas started walking better. First he was doing a couple steps. Wow, this is encouraging. Then he was doing quite a few steps. Then we were at the mall visiting Uncle Andrew and Nicholas saw an Elmo in a store window a couple stores away and tried to take off running and after a couple steps pulled up short.

There were two notable elements to this. First, he was able to run a couple steps and then switch to walking, whereas 3 hours earlier he couldn't walk 2 steps. Secondly, the way he pulled up short suddenly struck me as the way I pull up short when I pull a muscle or am trying to run on a pulled or sore muscle. Hmmm.

We don't actually know anything more, but he is continuing to do well. He is walking mostly fine again (although with a weird Charlie Chaplin half-march thing to his step sometimes) and doesn't seem to be in any pain. The doctor is fine to just wait and see as long as it doesn't get worse. And given all the crazy climbing and twisting and falling he has been doing it wouldn't surprise me at all if he tweaked something, so for now I'm willing to assume that is what it was and just be happy he is walking again.

And, the kicker? He did this a grand total of 7 hours after our secondary insurance expired. Always the king of good timing.