Toddler's Fracture

Time to chalk up another doctor's visit to Miles.  Seriously, I need to start a savings account for this boy's medical bills.  Last Monday, we got a call from school saying that Miles had been kicked by another little boy out on the playground.  Apparently, the teacher was pushing two girls on the swings when she looked over and Miles was on the ground crying.  He and the boy were playing kickball, and Miles said that the boy kicked him.  By the time we got the phone call, his leg had been iced, but he still hadn't walked on it and he couldn't be calmed down.

For the rest of the evening, Miles would cry if you touched his foot or leg, but there was no swelling, no heat, and no bruising or visible sign of injury.  Jeremy and I were concerned just the same and contemplated taking him to the ER - at one point Jeremy actually had Miles in the car on their way to the hospital, only to return after a few minutes.  Jeremy had talked to two different doctor friends who told him that it was highly unlikely for a 3 year old to break or fracture their leg from a kick.  At their advice, we decided to give it a few days.

Unfortunately, Jeremy and I were heading to Breckenridge in two days.  We gave consent for Nino to take Miles to the doctor if he didn't show improvement.  By Thursday, Miles still wasn't bearing much weight on his leg, so she took him in just to be safe.  The doctor did somewhere along the lines of 12 different x-rays, and all of them showed nothing.  We were glad to hear this, but when we returned on Sunday I could tell that something wasn't right the minute he put his feet on the ground.  He was limping severely and would favor his right foot even when he crawled.  The funny thing was that he could wiggle his toes and his ankle on command, and now he was not complaining of pain if you touched or put pressure on his foot with your hand.

It was heartbreaking for me to watch him gimp around like this, so I called his pediatrician.  She confirmed my intuition that it is not normal for a 3 year old to fake an injury or to favor a body part that is perfectly healthy.  So off to Cook Children's Urgent Care we went.  After the doctor's exam, she felt certain it was what they call a toddler's fracture.  These are typically hairline fractures of the tibia.  When she would take his foot and torc the leg inward and outward, Miles would wince and cry a little.  So, he is now in a boot cast for 2-3 weeks.  Oh, and "limit his activities," she says.  Sure. 

So there you have it.  Toddler's fracture.  I googled it afterward and sure enough, there are lots of descriptions/blog posts describing these exact symptoms.  Thank you Miles, for allowing me to become educated on yet another medical condition I've never heard of.