Friday Night Fun....

Or not so much.... Sam and I spent the evening at the childrens hospital, eating popsicals, getting bloodwork, x-rays, urine samples etc. The poor kid woke up with a fever on thursday night, complaining of a sore mouth, and a sore leg. He often gets leg pain in the night so I didn't think much of it. I tylenoled him and he went back to sleep. When he woke again, he was still complaining of all the same things. He was walking with a limp, wimpering as he went, and hardly ate any breakfast. Trying to climb the stairs was very painful for him, reducing him to tears. He climbed up in my bed to watch TV, and I left him there to rest. A friend stopped by, and we walked around the garden. As she was leaving, I could hear him screaming from inside. He was trying to come down the stairs and the pain was too much for him. I carried him down, gave him a wee bit of soup and crackers, then settled him on the sofa where he slept until after five. I watched him wake up, and as he did so he was holding his leg up in the air, looking at it, trying to stretch it out. I helped him off the couch and the tears started again.
Again he screamed on the stairs so I carried him up, and he helped me put a pizza together for the others. Hud brought the van home so I could take him in to emerg, Tracey next door took the other two, and I took Hud back to work. Half way to the hospital he started sobbing, the pain getting the better of him again. He cried the rest of the way there and the whole time we were in triage and still while we were registering. After a two hour wait we got taken in where he had to walk, and pee and get pulled and prodded. He did really well, and loved the fact that Claire's friends mommy was the X-ray tech. Many stickers later we were on to blood work, and finger puppets. X-rays were fine, blood work is not quite normal, but seems to be in keeping with a virus. We have to go back today as they want to look at him again. So....we are both exhausted as midnight is way past either of our bed-times, Sam is still sleeping but I am up as a neighbor ordered a cake for her son's first communion and I have not yet started that process. Who knows how long we will be there this afternoon. Hopefully he will be on the mend and if not, they will be able to figure out why his leg is causing him so much pain.

~ update ~ We are home with a diagnosis.....the doctor that saw him yesturday was quick to tell us that he was her last patient, so I was sure we would be rushed. Sam was sleeping by the time she got to us, and so she did her exam while he slept. She flung him all over the bed , swinging him by his feet and he didn't wake up. He flinched when she flexed his laft leg out, but didn't cry. When I told her that he couldn't stand on the left leg, she proceeded to lift him up, whip his right leg out from under him, and let him fall to the bed. She said that if he were in pain he would have woken up. Fair enough I thought. She has diagnosed him with transient synovitis, which is sudden pain in the hip. Transient because it comes and then goes. Apparently it is the most common cause of sudden hip pain in kids ages 3-10. Anyhoo....they don't really know what causes it other than they think it is either caused by a virus which of course you would have with a cold, or an allergic reaction to an infection in the body. We are going with the former. He is much better today, going up and down stairs and walking with only a slight side shift in his gait. His fever is lower but we are taking it easy today, just laying low.