March 2014

I feel like this last month has been such a whirlwind. So much has happened and so fast. Let's see if I can get this all down into words.
The last time we remember our sweet Malina running and being normal was Friday, March 7 2014. Daddy had been away for training for the Dive Team for work and was home for the weekend. Malina was so excited to see him, actually both girls couldn't get enough of him!! Over that weekend we noticed that Malina started limping. Over the next week it became worse, to the point that it looked like she hurt when she walked. On Friday March 14 I called her pediatrician and the Dermatologist that we had been seeing for her AVM. The specialist told us to watch her and if we thought something wasn't right to take her in over the weekend. The pediatricians office called me back later and told us to go to the emergency room. We didn't get there until 7 pm that night. After the doctor came in to examine her and had no ideas, she ordered an x-ray of her legs, an ultrasound of her hips and blood work. At that point we knew it was going to be a long night. Some great friends from church came and picked Jenna up so she would be able to sleep that night, that was at 9:30 pm. 

After all the results came back and they still did't see any problems, we were told that we could go home. It was now 1 a.m. Saturday morning and we were frustrated! Now what? Our energetic 19 month old hurts when she walks and her symptoms have gotten worse. What do we do now?
The next morning I went to a Stake Relief Society meeting. Everyone was shocked to see me since we got home so late but I felt like I needed to be there. I heard so many great messages. One that stuck out was that "You've Got This!" My sweet daughter was on my mind the whole time.
Later that day I remembered I had received a phone call from the hospital and they left a voice mail. Actually they had called me twice and both times I wasn't able to get to the phone. I finally listened to the messages around dinner time and called the nurse back. She quickly called me back and told me that the radiologist had looked at the x-rays that morning and saw an "abnormality, possible chip fracture" on her lower right tibia. I was told that it was in the growth plate so we HAD to go get her a walking boot that night. We had just spent 6 hours the night before in the ER and now we had to go back. And the only way orthopedics would see us is if we went to get the boot and got a referral from the ER. We went to urgent care to get the boot and spent another 3 hours there that night. 

On Monday I called orthopedics to get an appointment and the soonest they could get us in at the downtown location was that Thursday. During that week she progressed worse. She did not want to stand anymore and would only crawl. And the black walking boot was no fun!
We saw doctor Anderson for her appointment on Thursday. The first thing he told me was that what the radiologist saw was nothing and would not be causing her to get worse so fast. He did another x-ray that came back normal.  Next was to have an MRI done of her legs. We were able to get this done the next day, Friday.
Malina had a really hard time coming out of her sedation from the MRI. She never seemed to really wake up until Sunday afternoon. All weekend she was crabby, never slept for more than an hour at a time, didn't want to eat or drink too. It was really sad and evident that something wasn't right with Malina. It wasn't until Sunday afternoon that she was doing better. Happier and playful, but she could not crawl anymore. She would be in a sitting position but could not move her legs She also started running a fever.