Tough Break

We had our first major disaster in parenthood this week. I got the dreaded phone call at work that Paige was hurt. She had somehow twisted her ankle/leg in the beanbag chair at her babysitters house. Of course, since Paige has a high pain tolerance (something she most certainly did NOT inherit from me), she was able to go from inconsolable to happy by simply being put in a high chair with some goldfish. Her babysitter and I thought she might have a minor sprain. We knew she should be seen by a doctor, but didn't feel like there was a lot of urgency so I got an appointment for after school let out.

At the pediatrician, Paige was a little cranky, but nothing more than is expected at a doctors appointment in the middle of naptime. The doctor wanted us to get x-rays, so she directed us to the Fairfax Radiological Consultants: Inova Loudoun Imaging. They had to spend several minutes explaining to me that I was neither going to Fairfax Hospital or Loudoun Hospital, I was going to the Fairfax Radiology at Loudoun Hospital (which is actually at the Cornwall campus, not the hospital), which never made sense to me. Anyhow, the GPS guided me over to the bone photographer which was where Paige got her first hospital present, a mini rubber ducky! Apparently if you cry really hard during an x-ray, they reward you with a ducky. The two techs that took the pictures didn't let on that anything was wrong until they casually said, "The radiologist will want to talk to you, go ahead and wait in the waiting room for him," then one said to the other as I was walking out of the room, "yeah, I definitely see that..."

After the radiologist broke (pun intended) the bad news to me--fracture of the tibia--we were escorted to the ER where we had to wait, again. We were finally seen by the doctor and this is where Paige got her second hospital present of the day, a little teddy bear. They splinted her whole leg and then paraded all the doctors and nurses from the ER through her exam room to see the "cute little splinted leg." We were finally able to go home around 7 and were told to call the orthopedic surgeon in the morning to get a real cast.

Paige is handling everything as well as can be expected, but is extremely frustrated at her limited ability to move. She now has a cute little pink cast and she's able to maneuver herself around a little bit. Somehow I think this could delay her walking just a bit...