Busted Lip

Yesterday afternoon after Noah's nap he fell face first into our hardwood floors and gashed his top lip open.  I felt terrible, because it was pretty much my fault.  He had literally JUST got up from his lap and I carried him to the couch cradling him like a baby.  After chatting for a couple of minutes while cuddling like that, he went to roll off my lap.  This is a normal move for him, and he has never hurt himself.  But somehow his balance was tipped all wrong this time, and his legs didn't hit the ground first - his face did.  With no arms to protect him.  Ugh, I shudder just thinking about it.

I wasn't super worried for the first couple of second because Noah is pretty tough, and rarely cries when he gets hurt. But when I picked him up his mouth was full of blood!  I couldn't even see where the bleeding was coming from because there was so much of it.  He was obviously crying, hard.  He kept sadly begging for comfort ("Hug??!!!!  Cuddle?!?!"), which I was giving him while also trying to clean up the excessive amount of blood and figure out what kind of injury we were dealing with.  I couldn't stop the bleeding, but I figured out that his lip was torn open.

Finally he asked to nurse, which I had been waiting for.  I told him he could, of course, but I warned him that it might really hurt his mouth.  I actually didn't really expect him to be able to nurse for long because of the pain, but he did.  When he was done he was completely calm, and the pressure from nursing had thankfully stopped the bleeding.

However, his lip was a total mess.  Several gashes, deformed bulges hanging downward, and a large piece of skin hanging off of it all.  He couldn't stop licking it, which was making me cringe (thinking about it still makes me cringe, actually).

He did really well for the rest of the day, and was acting like his normal self.  By the evening his lip didn't look too terrible - the fact that all his licking removed the flap of skin was helpful.  

This morning he woke up and his lip is shaped almost normally, it's just really scabby.  It's amazing how quickly kids heal!

Regardless, I feel like absolute crap over the whole thing, since I totally could have prevented it.  This is the second worst thing that has happened to Noah - the first being the time his own father fell down the stairs with him and broke his leg.  He is not one of those kids who gets hurt often, because he's never really been accident prone.  I have this nauseous feeling whenever I think about this whole thing (and I'm 99.9% certain that nauseousness isn't morning sickness).  

This is cute little Noah, just an hour and a half before the unfortunate incident.  He asked me to take a picture of him smiling right before his nap :)

He just melts my heart.

Day 7 of Broken Leg

Noah is definitely no better.  I'm feeling defeated.  His limp is worse again today.  There is no way it will be gone by Monday, like the surgeon predicted.   He has to walk so slow, and he is falling a lot.  He looks like a brand new walker, instead of a kid who's been walking for 7-8 months.  He is also whimpering, seemingly about his leg, a lot more often than he has been since the accident.  I wonder if he will end up with a splint.

I was pretty successful at cutting down his walking time today.  He probably walked only about 20% of how much he usually walks.  I just can't do anything but be right beside him.  He is happy to sit on the floor and play with me for hours at a time.  But I can't be doing anything but paying direct attention to him.  That's great for us, but less than stellar for the state of my house (not that that matters in this situation).

Today I bought Noah a bunch of new toys that I am hoping will be interesting enough to hold his attention and keep him sitting for as long as his Clifford nesting blocks did today.  I got it all half off, but was anticipating the bill to be much higher than it was.  I was excited!

And I wonder how Noah will sleep tonight.  Last night was so crummy.  He was up for hours in the middle of the night, wanting me with him.  He never ever does this, so it was very out of character.  Since the accident he has only had 2 good nights, both of which he was on Tylenol for.  Most of the bad nights I didn't give him any medication.  However, last night I gave him both Tylenol before bed and ibuprofen at 3am, and it didn't make any difference to his sleep.  

I just don't feel comfortable not attending to him right now.  For all I know he's hurt his leg even worse by getting it caught in the crib, or he has caught some bug from spending the entire day in the ER and has thrown up all over himself or something.  I can't ignore the whimpers, whines, and cries right now.

Finally, A Diagnosis

After 2 ER visits, 2 misdiagnoses, and an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon, we have our verdict:

Noah's fibula is broken.

He has what's called a greenstick fracture, or a plastic deformation.  Basically, because his bones are still so flexible, the fibula got bent by the weight of Justin falling on it, and it got fractured in the process.  If he was older, the fracture probably would have been a lot worse.

Greenstick fractures are stable, so the orthopedic surgeon didn't want to cast it or splint it because it would just be a pain in the butt for Noah.  I am fine with that.  But he also said that we should not allow him to walk.

Ummm... have you ever had an 18 month old??  I told him I would do my best, put him in his high chair as much as possible and cuddle with him on my bed watching as much Sesame Street as he would tolerate, but nothing would stop this kid from walking.  Even a broken leg.

We go to see the ortho again on Monday, and then again 2 weeks after that.  He thinks Noah's limp will be a lot better by Monday, hardly noticeable.  Considering how bad it is right now, I have a really hard time believing that.  But we'll see.

So the details of my day are as follows:

We got to the ER in the late morning.  We waited for hours before being called back to a bed.  Noah cried whenever someone touched him.  Not necessarily because it hurt, but because he hates when strangers touch him.  Then we got into x-ray.  X-ray was... oh my goodness.  Torture.  I had to hold down his upper body while a tech held his leg still.  He was screaming as hard as he could and begging to nurse.  He was only in a onesie at this point, but after we were done he was bright red and extremely sweaty.

The ER doctor got the images right away and told us his leg looked fine.  I told him I was still sure it was broken, and that from everything I read, sometimes the break doesn't show up on the x-rays or it can be hard to spot.  He said he's not a radiologist, but he's seen a lot of x-rays and it looked normal to him.  He told me it was probably just a soft tissue injury, like the last ER doctor said.  He said he'd call if the radiology report said anything different.  We were standing at the exit and had basically been dismissed, and I said "Well, his limp just keeps getting worse, which is not consistent with a soft tissue injury.  So what am I supposed to do?    How long do I let this limp go on for until I bring him in again?  And then where do I go?"

The doctor looked perplexed, because he seemed to realize that the whole thing didn't make sense.  So he called the orthopedic surgeon who was on call and talked to him, and the ortho wanted to see me at 4pm today.

We left to bring Noah home to my parent's house for a nap.  Both my mom and I agreed that his fibula did not look normal in the x-ray, even if the doctor thought it did.  It had a curved spot, and I saw some lines that I didn't think belonged there (I saw several x-rays on toddler legs during the past few days while trying to figure out what Noah had, so I was fairly familiar with how they should look, although I wouldn't claim to be an expert).  I was still convinced it was broken.

Noah had a good nap, over an hour.  He woke up at 3:50, and we rushed to the ER again to see the ortho.  We needn't have rushed.  We didn't get to see him until 5:15.  That's when he told us that Noah's leg is, in fact, broken.

And that is when I was vindicated.  I thought his fibula was broken (yes, specifically his fibula, not his tibia), and I told all the doctors and nurses this, so they wouldn't need to investigate all sorts of unnecessary stuff (which they didn't, really, to their credit).  And I could tell they were all like "Oh yeah, okay Mom, Over Reactor."  I tried to explain to them that, if anything, I'd be considered an under reactor, and the fact that I brought my kid to the ER for the second time in a week, and that I am subjecting him to all these scenarios that are going to make him scream his head off, means I know something is wrong.  It was not a stupid soft tissue injury.

And it wasn't.  It was a fracture.

Anyway, Noah was really well behaved the whole day.  He only cried when people were touching him.  Other than that he didn't even complain or whine.  He was the model child.  

-He played with the wheelchairs.  

-He kept walking over to a sick toddler who was crying and saying "Baby!  Baby!  Poor baby."  

-He went over to a 1 month old baby who had a cold and kept saying "Baby!"  

-After that he kept saying "Baby!  Shhhh!"  with his finger in front of his mouth, like we should be quiet for the little baby.  

-He kept running to the automatic doors (which responded to his small stature) trying to escape.  When he finally understood that no matter how many times he tried it, we would always stop him, he started running over to the doors, stopping when they opened, and saying "Uh oh!!!"

-He made fast friends with a couple of kids who came in with their mom, and they were colouring and playing together.

He was so cute:)

Unsuccessful

Our efforts to bypass the ER by getting an x-ray requisition have been unsuccessful.  I mean, sure, we'll get an x-ray appointment in a few days.  And then a radiologist will look at it the next day.  And then he'll send our family doctor the results the next day.  And then we'll get referred to an orthopedic surgeon a day or two or three later.  And then we'll get an appointment at ambulatory care to get a cast put on the next day.  

And by then my kid's leg has been broken for 2 weeks.

I'm pretty sure I'm taking him to the ER in the city nearby tomorrow morning.  I wanted to do this in a way where I could avoid everyone touching him and making him scream hysterically, and avoid spending 4 hours in the ER with an 18 month old.  But apparently that is not possible.

Eff.

Update on Noah's Leg

Alright.  The Incident was on Saturday.  On Sunday Noah woke up and had a rough start, but was eventually able to walk with a limp.  He's been limping ever since, and his leg has been tender when we do certain things to it, although it has been hard to narrow down exactly where it was hurting.  We got so that we figured out it seemed to be his lower leg.  He would protest if we grabbed it, even gently, for a clothes or diaper change (unfortunately that is the leg we always grab during diaper changes).  

By tonight, Tuesday, Noah's limp seems more pronounced, and Justin narrowed it down even further to figure out that it was the outside of his lower leg that is really tender.  

So, Noah is walking, but he can't run, and his gait is nothing like it normally is.  He is clearly favouring his right leg.  He can't step onto even small steps if he has to bear significant weight on his right leg.

Justin did a whole bunch of online research tonight and is now convinced that he broke Noah's leg.  He is sure that Noah has something called a "Toddler's Fracture," which is a fracture of the tibia or fibula.  The series of events, along with Noah's behaviour ever since, fits it perfectly.

So I guess I need to get him in for an xray.  :(  I am mad that they sent us away from the ER on Saturday without doing one, considering there was no one there.  Hopefully it's not actually a fracture, but it sure seems to fit.

Noah's First ER Visit

Tonight was not a good night.

We went into my parents house (they're out of town) for me to do ozone therapy. We brought in a pizza, since we went in at dinner time. The pizza went in the oven and I'd been doing ozone for about 1 minute when Justin fell down the stairs WHILE HOLDING NOAH. He smashed Noah's right leg between his huge 230lb body and the hard stairs. Noah was crying so hard and clinging to me like he never has before. I nursed him to calm him down, but I could tell he was still in pain. We stood him on the ground to see what would happen and he crumpled as soon as he took a step.  He couldn't walk. 

I have never taken him to the doctor or ER for anything before.  I never want to uproot a sick or in pain baby and take him to the doctor, since he hates doctors.  But when that happened, I was like "WE'RE GOING.  NOW."  

We took him to the ER, pretty sure that it is his right foot that's the problem (but not totally sure - it could be the whole leg).  However, because he can bear weight on his leg to a small extent, they didn't do any x-rays or anything because they are pretty sure it's not broken.  They just said to keep giving him ibuprofen and Tylenol and to watch the swelling.  If it's pretty swollen tomorrow, bring him back to the ER. 

But he still can't walk. And he keeps trying to walk, which gives him a lot of pain.

I am really upset about this. And I'm really trying not to be mad at Justin and take it out on him, since that's my personality when I'm upset - I need to blame someone and rant and rave about it.  It's a character flaw that I'm very aware of. Thankfully I've been able to bite my tongue from saying all the things the Mama Bear in me wants to say.  It was a mistake.  And Justin is really upset.  Maybe more upset than me.  When Noah crumpled when he tried to walk, Justin immediately started crying.  It is his worst fear realized.  He is so angry and upset at himself.  I don't blame him.

But still. I'm sad for Noah and worried about him.  When I was nursing him to sleep he kept moving his right leg around.  It's what he does when he's in a lot of pain.  He can't stop moving the injured appendage.

I hope he's okay tomorrow, but I don't think he will be.  I don't know how we're going to keep him from trying to walk all day tomorrow.  Everytime he tries he starts whimpering and crying in pain, but he just keeps trying.  If only he were a little bit older and could understand better that he just needs to crawl right now.

I hate this.  My poor baby:(

Vacation 2011

(I apologize for any spelling or grammar mistakes; I'm exhausted and just need to get this posted!)

July 5-9, 2011, was Noah's second "vacation" up to the cottage in Muskoka.  I was dreading this trip.  For weeks I couldn't stop thinking about it and what a disaster it would be.  Since December Noah has refused to sleep anywhere but in his own crib (except when he falls asleep in the car), so I was very afraid of both him and I getting no sleep while we were up there.  I was fully prepared to drive the 5 hours there, and basically turn right around and come home the next day.

I prepared Noah for quite some time.  His pack 'n play is always set up in our living room.  Noah wouldn't ever go in it without dissolving into tears, but I used it regularly when I was babysitting Aubrey.  Everyday I would bring Noah's attention to the playpen and say "When we go to the cottage, this is where you're going to go night-night.  This is where you're going to sleep at the cottage!  Mommy will still be there when you're sleeping."  Etc. Etc. 

We arranged it so that we wouldn't be at the cottage with anyone else, besides my parents.  I would have liked to try to be up there the whole week, but we didn't want to be up there with my siblings and their spouses.  Arranging it like this meant that Noah actually got to have his own room, which I was pretty sure would be better for both of our sleep (knowing my child as I do, I had visions of him standing in his playpen in the middle of the night screaming at me for hours, just because he could see me).

So we left Tuesday morning at about 10:30.  This was nowhere close to Noah's normal naptime (which is usually around 1pm), but he had been awake long enough (about 2.5 hours) that being in the car made him fall asleep within 10 minutes.  Unfortunately, that nap lasted all of 30 minutes.  And he didn't nap at all the rest of the drive.  However, the drive went really well.  We powered through with lots of food for all of us, new toys for Noah, and we didn't stop once on the way up there.

We had a brief visit with my younger brother and his wife when we arrived.  Our time at the cottage overlapped with theirs by about an hour.  My Dad brought Noah down to the beach pretty much immediately, without Justin and I.  Noah wasn't too sure about the sand at first, and when I arrived down on the beach after Noah had been down there for about 45 minutes, he started pouting for me and then all he wanted to do was sit in my lap.  Oh, and nurse.  He asked to nurse about a million times. 

Our family rents several cottages at this resort, so besides my parents, my other relatives up there were my Uncle Pete and Aunt Sonja and their four children Jake (14), Claire (11), Mia (9), and Lucy (5), my Uncle Rick and Aunt Joanne, and my cousin Steve, his wife Kristina, and their kids Lukas (5) and Jackson (2).

When we got up to the cottage Noah had fun exploring his new space.  I showed him his bedroom, and told him that this was where he was going night-night, that his playpen was like his crib, and that was going to be his bed for a few days.  I showed him where Mommy and Daddy would be sleeping, and assured him that we would not leave him here alone, that we would be here when he was sleeping and when he woke up.  I wasn't totally convinced that all this talking was being fully understood by my 15.5 month old.  He has excellent receptive language skills, but this was all pretty abstract.  It was definitely worth a shot, though.

I had also brought things that were normally present in his crib at home and put them in the appropriate places in his pack 'n play, like his lovey and a quilt that I always have hanging over the end of his crib.  And of course I had brought his fan, which we always have at home to drown out noises.

He wanted to play in his pack 'n play suddenly (so weird, since he hates it at home).  I put him in there and sat on the bed in his bedroom while he played in his playpen for about half an hour.  I hoped all the playing in there would get him comfortable in the area, and lead to him sleeping well.   Then we had dinner.

Noah had to go to bed relatively early that first night, since he had been awake since 11:10am.  I nursed him to sleep and he went to bed at 7:30 with zero fuss whatsoever.  A long time went by with not a peep from him.  At one point I went into his room to do something (I don't remember what), and while I was in there Noah woke up and sat up in bed, looking at the door.  I was crouched in an awkward position on the bed, hidden by the quilt and super uncomfortable.  Luckily Noah didn't stand up or he would've seen me.  He ended up just lying back down.  I stayed crouched there until I was pretty sure he was asleep again, then snuck out of the room.

I went to bed early, not convinced that he would be sleeping well, despite the fact that he had sat up, awake, and then gone back to sleep.

Noah ended up waking up at 10:30 and crying.  Not crying hard, but pouting crying.  I gave him a few minutes to sort it out on his own, but when he didn't, I went in and nursed him back to sleep.  I wanted him to know that I was still there, I hadn't left him.

I went back to my cramped double bed that I was sharing with Justin.  And I didn't sleep.  At all.  Noah slept until 5:30am.  I nursed him again, and put him back in his bed awake.  He didn't make a peep.  I went back to bed.  I maybe dozed for half an hour.  I'm not sure.  Then I was awake for awhile.  Then I dozed for maybe 20 minutes.  Then I was awake.  Noah got up at about 8am.

And that, my friends, was all the sleep I got in the first night. 

Did you know that when two adults are sleeping in a double bed, they each have the size of a crib mattress to sleep on?  I am quite possibly the world's worst sleeper.  I can't even sleep well in my king-sized bed with my husband.  Screw a double!  Double beds are NOT meant for two people to sleep in.

For the second night I took an extra single bed mattress and put in on the floor of our room.  I was going to sleep on it, but Justin insisted that he would.  He sleeps better than I do, and wanted me to be as comfortable as possible so I could maximize my sleep.  I did sleep much better the second night.  Not well, but much better.

After that one extra wake up at 10:30pm the first night, Noah slept exactly like he sleeps at home.  In fact, he probably slept a little better.  Just one wake-up to nurse each night, not a single episode of crying.  Not one episode of crying.  Not at nighttime, not at naptime.  And every nap was an hour long, just like at home.  No stupid half hour naps.  No going on car rides to get him to sleep.  No taking long walks in the middle of the day so he might fall asleep in his stroller.  Just a normal, cry-free nap in his playpen.

It was amazing.  I was flabbergasted.  I prepared him to be sleeping in the pack 'n play; I assured him I would not be leaving him alone; I went to him at the first sign of distress that first night... it all worked!  Seriously, I was shocked.  I'm still shocked.  My mom kept saying it was because I never leave him and make him feel scared and uncomfortable, so he feels secure that Mommy will always be there. 

Anyway, the good sleeping on Noah's part made it easy to ignore the crappy sleeping on my part, and we had a fantastic time at the cottage. 

One of the first things we did was go to the falls... without Noah's paranoid Daddy:) (This batch of pictures at the falls was taken with my Mom's cell phone).

Noah really enjoyed himself!

Noah loved the beach.

He was not a very big fan of the actual lake, though.  It freaked him out.  So everyday Justin dug him his own little beach pool.

He liked the little family of ducks:

Here's Noah getting ready for the beach on the last day:

This picture kills me.  He's like "Rock on!!":



In the car going out for ice cream (except that Noah isn't allowed to have ice cream.  He had cheerios):

In the stroller, tearing apart the ice cream cone napkin:

This face makes me laugh:

Excited to be at the Falls again:



"Mom, let me go!  I want to explore!!"

Okay, enough of the pictures!

We left to go home on Saturday morning at 10:30.  Noah fell asleep before naptime again.  And this time, he slept just 23 minutes.  Not another wink for the rest of the trip home.  And the trip home was not nearly as successful as the trip there.  There was a lot of crying.  And sometime in the last hour of the trip, Noah ended up with a mysterious large bruise on the left side of his jaw near his ear.  It almost looks like a hickey.  Justin and I are completely baffled by it.

Noah's sleeping has been a bit of a disaster since we got home.  Apparently he preferred it at the cottage.

Worst Bathtime EVER (and 1 year appointment)

oh. my. gosh.

That was, without a doubt, the worst bathtime EVER.

Noah was screaming like he was possessed by demons.  Like he was being tortured. He was clinging to me so tight, wrapping his arms around my neck and his legs around my body, burying his head into my neck. It was AWFUL.

I felt terrible, but he really needed a bath. He didn't have one yesterday, and he had sunscreen all over his face, arms, legs, and in his hair. He really needed a bath.  After we got him out Justin had to moisturize him as best he could as his clung to me like a little monkey, crying his head off.

Getting his diaper on was also awful.  He would not let go of my neck. It was hard enough to get him on the change table because he was trying so hard to wrap his legs around my body. I laid him down and leaned over top of him so he could keep hugging me tight, and Justin desitined his bum and tried to diaper him. A few times Noah pushed me away so he could desperately sign to nurse, and then he'd pull me back in. If I could have I would have nursed him while he was lying on the table, but he still needed his pajamas on, and they and his sleepsack were lying on our bed, where I always nurse him at bedtime.

It was awful. I hope that never happens again.  He did conk out while I was nursing him, though.  Maybe he was really overtired, leftover from yesterday.
 

~~~~~~~~~

 
Today was also Noah's 12 month doctor's appointment.  What's that you say?  He's almost 14 months old?
 
I know.  But Noah was sick 3 times in the month after he turned 1, and I didn't want to take him to the doctor and to get shots when he was sick.  Then today was the soonest I could get in.
 
My doctor's office opens back up after lunch at 2pm, but I couldn't get an appointment until 2:30 (if I wanted a 2pm appointment I couldn't get in until a full week later). Since they should only be booking 2 people every 15 minutes, it'd be ridiculous if they were already running very behind at 2:30, right?  Well, I waited in the waiting room for 45 minutes, and then again in the exam room for 10 minutes.

Unfortunately, Noah was in a crappy mood before we even left our house.  He did fine while we waited in the waiting room, since there were a bunch of old people paying attention to him.  But once we got into the exam room Noah was pissed off, and all he wanted to do was leave.   He kept trying to get out the door. He cried when the nurse tried to measure his height, and cried when she measured his head. Then when the doctor came in Noah was all "Get the heck away from me," and cried with everything he did. Listening to his chest, checking his ears... forget the shots. He has never cried like that.

Noah is not a crybaby.  He often doesn't cry at all when he gets hurt.  If he does cry, it's not normally for very long.  But he was so upset about these shots.  I held him while he got them, and he would occasionally look at the doctor accusingly, with giant tears running down his face, but the rest of the time he spent clinging to me, head buried in my neck, crying his eyes out. 

He was so upset that I nursed him afterward.  It was the first time he needed it after shots.  All his other shots he cried for about 30 seconds after just the second shot, but not at all after the first one.  Not this time.  He was still kind of crying while I was nursing him afterward. And he didn't show any signs of popping off the boob. The doctor had been gone a couple of minutes, and finally I said, "Noah, do you want to go home?" He grunted while he was nursing, to mean yes, and so I said "Well, if you stop nursing we can go home and see Daddy." So he popped off and pointed to the door, and we were out of there. It was our worst doctor's appointment ever.

Today has not been a wonderful day for that poor little guy.  Hopefully tomorrow is better.

First Blood Shed

(Noah is 9 months, 2 weeks, 5 days old)

Poor Noah got hurt today, and it was the very first time he's ever shed blood besides the times that medical care providers have violated his skin with needles.

He was standing at my chair wanting me to pick him up.  He kept bobbing his legs because he really really wanted me to pick him up.  I was taking my time, watching playback of a Flip video of him Justin took on New Year's Eve that I hadn't seen yet.  Eventually he bobbed too much and went straight down and banged his mouth on the kitchen chair.  It gave him a slightly fat lip and something in his mouth area was bleeding.  We couldn't really tell what it was.

It didn't bleed too much, and after snuggles from Mommy he felt better.  Needless to say, I felt terrible.  Why oh why didn't I pick him up sooner?  It was all my fault!  Woe is me!  And woe is my fat-lipped son!