I'm a little delayed, but a few weeks ago we had to make our first ER visit with Vivian. This made our second ER trip this year, and now both girls have had their first official emergency.
It's really no surprise that Vivian's first visit occurred at a much younger age than Evelyn, as she does everything she can to keep up with her big sister - even if she's not quite ready. After watching her big sister do it, Vivian began climbing up onto our bed. And one afternoon while I happened to be vacuuming, both girls climbed up onto the bed and proceeded to have a fine time jumping and carrying on.
And while the little monkey didn't fall and bump her head, she did fall and manged to do something to her foot. She fussed for a few minutes and seemed to move on quickly. But, when I put her down she proceeded to take one step and fall down. I set her back up again, and she took another step and managed a step or two but was visibly limping. She wasn't crying at all when she stepped, but it was obvious something wasn't right.
I made a quick phone call to the pediatrician, and the advice was to get to the ER for x-rays to check for anything broken. A few more phone calls to get Aunt Kelly over to watch Evelyn and to let Steve know what was going on, and we were on our way to the ER in the middle of some crazy thunderstorms.
Our second ER visit was unfortunately not nearly as quick as our first visit, during which we waited a total of about 20 minutes in the waiting from. We learned that Monday in general is the worst day to visit the ER, and you add on some bad thunderstorms, and that only adds to the craziness. It was over 2 hours before we were called back, and during that time all Vivian wanted to do was walk around and flirt with everyone else who was stuck sitting there. With each step, her walk seemed to get better and better, and it appeared more and more clear that there was most likely not a broken bone. But at that point we were committed to being checked out, and continued to wait. Steve and I took many turns walking around the hospital parking lot in between the rain showers.
Once we were called back, the nurses were fabulous - which we have come to expect at Chester County. There was a lot more waiting for x-rays, and then for the results to be reviewed. While the waiting was much more extensive this time around, the diagnosis and treatment was much, much easier to take. Either a badly bruised big toe, or perhaps a sprain. Ibuprofen as needed to help with any pain, and a follow up with the pediatrician if her walking wasn't back to normal in a few days.
Luckily within about 2 days she was back to normal...running, climbing, and now trying to jump as high as her sister can.
