Wednesday Rylee climbed into our junk closet and dug out a pool float from this summer. Strangely, it was mostly blown up so I didn’t think anything about it when she asked me to fix it. Shortly after covering up with it, laying on top of it, and using it as a hot dog/ice cream/root beer stand it became a sled. Despite my reservations about the whole idea I watched a couple of times and she held on to the rail as she went down the stairs on it. It wasn’t too fast, and in my opinion it was better than the laundry basket she occasionally uses when she doesn’t think I’m watching.
The novelty of this idea progressed into Thursday as well. Thursday daddy was home, and what better idea than to slide down the stairs on a swimming pool float than with Daddy? Apparently, none. With Tom’s added weight and possibly something else that went awry (I was fixing our Thanksgiving Dinner at the time) Rylee injured herself. Tom thought she hit her leg on the wall. Rylee said she landed funny. Either way we carried her to the couch, pulled out the ice, checked to make sure everything appeared to work and let her hang out on the couch with daddy crying and refusing chocolate pudding. This is not normal Rylee behavior.
Figuring she needed some time we gave her Tylenol and tried our darnedest to sleep through her crying. Friday morning I got up and around and kept checking on her, but she didn’t want to get out of bed. Finally, around 10:30 Friday morning she asked me to carry her because she couldn’t walk. The not being able to walk lasted through a trip to Wal-Mart for an ace bandage and some Children’s Motrin, back home again to the couch.
At 4:30, I decided I would rather face the emergency room then than later at night or any time on the weekend. Rylee forgot she couldn’t walk when her name was called into the triage area and she promptly fell after two steps. This was the first time I had even seen her attempt to walk since the previous day and it made me realize that she wasn’t exaggerating. After a couple of x-rays aimed at the area Rylee said was hurting the doctor said nothing was broken. After watching her fall after trying to walk he went back and reanalyzed the film but still didn’t see anything. After Rylee looked at him with pleading blue eyes that are nearly impossible to ignore and said, “make it feel better, please, it still hurts” he took us to look at the x-rays which were the clearest non-broken bone x-rays I’ve ever seen.
She does drink a lot of milk.
So he wrapped her leg from knee to ankle, focusing on the part she said. If not better by Monday we have to go see our doctor and possible a specialist. Hopefully nothing is too lasting though.
So there’s no broken bone and three days later she is still not walking. Gradually standing, yes. Crawling everywhere, yes. Walking, no.
It’s a very difficult thing to watch.
