The lass’ ankle saga continues. And it gets worse!
The Wife took her to the pediatrician on Tuesday, where they scheduled some x-rays to make sure nothing was being missed. I finally got a call today with the results and it turns out she has a fracture.
It’s not a break, where the bone is separated into two pieces. It’s a crack. The doctor explained there was no “displacement” but that she needed to keep her weight off of the ankle until we could get her in to see a orthopedic guy. That will be tomorrow’s doctor’s visit.
The thing that bothers me the most right now, is that on Saturday night when she was clearly hurting the most, there was a point where merely touching the swollen area of her ankle caused her to wince from the pain. At the time, I distinctly remember thinking “That’s weird for just a sprain, could it be a fracture?” But, from my perspective, there were none of the normal signs of a fracture: she could move her ankle around without pain and there wasn’t any serious swelling to be seen. So I just chalked it up to a certain amount of hysteria on her part over an injury that was something new to her.
Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that the combination of the lack of swelling, the tenderness to the touch and the inability of her to put any weight on it without pain all fit this fracture scenario. It’s certainly something I’ll keep in mind going forward. Here’s hoping I never need to call upon it.
At this point, the question for me is: how badly do I beat myself up over this?
I think the answer is- some, but not too much.
Rushing her to the ER on Saturday night would have led to us discovering what was going on quicker, for certain. But then, it’s not like it was an actual emergency. Sure, she was in pain, but that’s being injured. Did the misdiagnosis cause her any problems? Not that I can see. If there had been displacement due to the fracture, we certainly would have dealt with it right away. But all of her visible signs gave no indication that something more was going on. Further, the fracture she has, at the risk of my minimizing an injury, isn’t the sort of thing that a lot can be done with. Even sending her to the orthopod tomorrow, the question is whether he’ll put a cast on her foot or merely splint it up. There are no bones to set and there will be no surgery.
But a lesson was learned, for certain. For one, I’ll trust the lass more when it comes to dealing with injuries. She did stay out on the ice for awhile after the initial injury, and she managed through a couple of pretty uncomfortable nights. In all, even though she couldn’t really explain how it happened, I’ll certainly be more careful when she describes a pain that doesn’t fit with my own knowledge base.
The more important lesson, though, is one in humility. I was certain it was a sprain- completely convinced in my powers of diagnosis in spite of the fact that I have no formal medical training. I was in pretty good company as well. The Wife, my parents (all of whom are no strangers to injury) and even the pediatrician were all convinced of the same thing. While I was part of a crowd, here I speak only for me regarding how certain I was in myself. Thankfully, my arrogance didn’t cost the lass anything. This is one of those experiences I’ll keep in mind so that it stays that way.