Limping Ethan

On Wednesday afternoon Ethan woke from his nap crying. He does this about 10%of the time, for no obvious reason, so we didn’t think much of it, but he was pointing to and touching his right leg. For the rest of the afternoon he limped around the house.

Thursday he was still limping, so in the afternoon we took him to the local medical centre. The doctor examined him and couldn’t find anything wrong, except for the fact that he was limping. No swelling, no redness, no bruising, no tenderness. Ethan is otherwise perfectly healthy, eating, drinking, playing even running (with a limp) and his temperature is normal. The doctor didn’t know what was wrong, so he sent us for an x-ray.

Friday morning, he was still limping. He even cried a bit when he stumbled, and we assume it’s because it hurt his poor leg. At 11am Ethan got his pelvis, right hip and entire right leg, all the way down to his toes x-rayed. He cried during the first x-ray, but when he realised it didn’t hurt, he was reasonably co-operative. About 4pm we took him back to the doctor with the x-rays. The doctor said the x-rays looked normal, and he did not know what was wrong….. he advised us to take Ethan to the hospital for a second opinion and further testing.

About 5:30pm we arrive to the hospital. Ethan was seen by the triage nurse and given a category 5, which is the lowest priority, least life threatening category. And so we waited….. and waited ……. and waited. Ethan was very good about waiting. He ate his dinner, watched The Wiggles on the iPod and played with the vending machines! He was tired, as he didn’t get a nap today, but he coped VERY well (for a 21month old toddler). We had to wait so long as they were very busy, we saw lots of other kids come in, and get seen before us. 2 kids with arms in slings, a few babies looking like they had high temperatures and 2 kids with head wounds…….

About 9pm we FINALLY got seen by a doctor. Ethan was very co-operative. He let the doctors look at his legs, and he walked up and down the examination room and showed off his limp. The doctors were stumped. They could not explain his limp. One doctor told us that sometimes kids get limps without a cause, and it goes away in a few days…. He suggested we do a blood test (to rule out infection) and come back on Monday morning for them to see how he was progressing……..So, Ethan got some Angel gel (local anaesthetic cream) on his arm and we waited another 45 mins for it to work. They did the blood test, and Ethan was EXCELLENT! He didn’t even flinch when they put the needle in, and they got enough blood first go! He was such a good boy. We were clever enough to have his favourite DVD playing to distract him :)

After the blood test we came home and out our tired boy to bed at about 10:30pm (normal bed time is 7pm). We’ll see how he goes over the weekend and go back Monday…..