A broken kid!

Wow! It's been a long time since I've written! We've had quite a bit of excitement around here lately! Carissa broke her ankle!

She was at a birthday party at the cheer gym and did a punch front (like a front flip) on the tumble track (like a loooonnnnnggggg trampoline) and rolled her ankle outward. It looked pretty bad. I took her to the ER and they said it was either a slight fracture or a bad sprain. They put her in a splint and recommended follow-up with the orthopedic doctor.

At the orthopedic doctor, he said he felt it was a fracture and he asked for a CT scan, which she had the following day. He put her in a boot that she could take off to shower - but she couldn't put any weight on her foot at all.

On Thursday she started having a different pain in her foot that she described as a burning or stinging, and it was worse when she'd stand up after having been sitting for a while - like when the blood ran into it. She was in quite a bit of pain and stayed home from school on Thurs. On Friday when she was still in pain, I took her back to the doctor. We saw a different one this time. I took the films from the CT scan back with me.

This doctor read the films and said it is a fracture. She said it is through her growth plate and across the joint (we later found out that means she broke both her tibia (shin bone) and fibula (the skinnier bone that makes up your ankle)). She said she wasn't as concerned about the growth plate issue as the joint issue. She said if the joint dislocates, that Carissa would need a pin. Therefore, she put her in a hard cast. She said she'd be in the hard cast for 3 weeks, then back in the boot. For the next 3-4 weeks she'd be able to start putting some weight on it and would start rehab. She said as for the burning pain, she thought maybe the swelling was affecting a nerve.

So that's pretty much where we are. We had to make another trip to the ER last weekend because of the burning pain. The doctors still don't know what's causing it, but they definitely don't think it's circulatory because she's not showing any other signs of a circulation problem. If she does too much, it hurts. If she doesn't do too much, it doesn't hurt. Seems like problem solved to me!

I will post pictures of her hot pink cast and decked out crutches later this week.