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the saga of layla's ankle

on Monday morning, layla got out of bed and complained about her ankle hurting. I looked at it, and not seeing anything or figuring how she could have injured it in her sleep, I dismissed it. she didn’t complain about it the rest of that day, even through walking to a friend’s house for a playdate, playing all afternoon, and walking home again. that evening, during dinner, she started complaining again. I thought she was being dramatic and trying to get shane in trouble, because the two of them had been horsing around. when she didn’t want to finish her dinner and crawled down the hall to get her jammies on, I went to look at it. lo and behold, it was crazy swollen! 012013 the first picture is the bad ankle, the second is the good ankle, just for comparison… so we put some ice on it and chilled out for awhile. I wrapped it in an ace bandage and put her to bed. she did not sleep. she whined and whimpered and moaned and cried. dave got her up and had a look. we put some more ice on it. we distracted her with cartoons. she cried and complained the whole time. it was definitely weird, and not like her to be THAT dramatic. when she finally fell asleep (in my bed), she moaned and whimpered ALL night, and slept fitfully, at best. I slept even worse. so I called the dr. in the morning. we went in and they looked at it. it was even more swollen then, and she wouldn’t put any weight on it. they took x-rays, which showed nothing. so… then they wanted to take her temperature and a blood test to check for infections and some indicators of scary stuff like juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile inflammatory arthritis or stuff like that. they asked if there was any family history of joint problems or conditions, and sent us home to wait for the results and to ice, elevate, and monitor her temperature because a fever would mean bad, bad stuff. doc called with blood test results and that looked pretty normal. red and white cell counts looked normal and there was another thing that was slightly elevated, but not alarmingly so. she was supposed to rest and keep weight off of it and continue w/ the ice and wrapping and elevating. so we’ve been monitoring it for the last couple days with calls between me and the dr’s office to check on how things are going. by wednesday afternoon, she was complaining about not being able to play and was asking to go to the park and jump on the trampoline. so obviously not hurting as much, but still swollen. yesterday, I let her run around like normal, but still iced and wrapped in the evening. I also noticed some discoloration by her ankle that looked like it was going to bruise. so I called them back this morning and they wanted to see her again. well... the bruising is a good thing! bruising indicates injury, not some evil condition like JRA or JIA that they were concerned about. of course, after we sit down and the nurse starts asking us questions, she leans over and whispers in my ear, "actually, mom. i know what happened. i twisted my ankle on sunday while dancing at church." nice. would have been helpful to know that sometime before FRIDAY! sheesh! i guess i can't totally blame her, since when it swelled up and started hurting, it didn't occur to me to ask her if she had done anything to hurt it recently and not told me about it. in my defense, i generally KNOW when she has done something to hurt herself. it's not something she stays quiet about. oh well. doc says she should be fine and no need to ice or wrap it anymore. she can play as long as it's not hurting her. yay! so there you go. hopefully that’s the end of it.








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