I went "there"

I am usually pretty even tempered and I don't assume the worst will happen in a new or difficult situation. When Zoey suddenly couldn't walk this week, I did however, take a trip "there". The bad place. The place where my child would need immediate surgery, or have a cancerous tumor, or would have somehow contracted Polio. Illogical to jump to those situations sure, but real fear nevertheless.

Zoey is just fine. Here's the story:
Wednesday morning she kept telling me that her knee hurt. I'd kiss it and we'd move on. Then I noticed she was limping a little. Frankly, I couldn't tell if it was swollen or not, both of her knees are just really chubby, but I gave her some ibuprofen and we iced her knee a little. She had lunch and went down for a nap. After the nap, she refused to put any weight on that leg. Any weight. She'd take a step, bend over to clutch her leg and in a pitiful-sounding voice cry out, "leg. leg. leg."

I called up my resident child medical advice nurse (aka, Nicole) and she said I should call the real advice nurse at my pediatrician's office. After automatic phone answering hell, (it really did seem like a long time when my baby was in so much pain and I was starting to really worry) we took the suggestion to make an appointment and were in to see the Dr. a half hour later.

The Dr. checked out all sorts of things and didn't find anything alarming. She thought that Zoey may have a temporary arthritic condition caused by a recent infection. Perhaps her horrible diaper rash was a bacterial infection after all. Although I'd never heard of the condition before, apparently it wasn't that uncommon for kids. The anti-bodies that fight off the infection go celebrate together in one location, usually a joint, and that causes the pain. She told me to give her regular doses of ibuprofen and wait it out three days or so.

We got home and my girl sat on the couch for an hour watching cartoons. An hour! This kid doesn't sit still for 15 minutes usually. I fed her dinner and by the time Kevin got home she was suddenly walking again. I was happy she wasn't in pain, but really wanted her to show her dad how horrible things were earlier so that he would believe me! She's just fine now, although I'm keeping up with the pain killers for a few days just in case. And the Dr. called yesterday to check on her, which is not usual. That made me think that she was a little worried about my munchkin too.

Glad all is well now (expect for the runny nose she woke up with this morning).