Sunday, March 8, 2009

Of Agony and Rejoicing...



Yesterday, something happened.

Actually to be fair, something started happening Friday night, 11:00 pm.

Friday morning, Beanie woke up RARING to go. It was BEAUTIFUL outside...SHE got to wear shorts...SHE wanted OUT of the house. So off we went. She wanted to go for a walk, a big walk at a local nature museum.



I said, "OKAY...let's do it". We went...we renewed our year membership (as we do every spring).



But along the way, I noticed she was stopping a lot. She was slowing down and showing the other girls things that were interesting so they would slow down...





She went from walking with them, to seriously lagging behind...



But she made it...still pretty much smiling...but quiet.

When we got home, everyone layed down for a bit...then Bubba came home early from the training he'd had all week. The girls wanted to play with him. For some reason, Bean didn't want to play soccer, which was odd, as soccer is THE game right now. She wanted to throw the ball...so he threw the ball with her.

At some point during all this, I suggested that MAYBE she was a little sore...MAYBE a bath would be in order. At first she poo poo'd this notion...but by about 6pm, she said she thought that was probably a good idea. Hmmmm...

The rest of the evening was uneventful...we ate, talked, watched some TV, had story time and went to bed.

11:00 pm...Bean woke up in HORRIBLE pain. She couldn't move her right leg and any movement of either leg caused pain to "squirt" down her right thigh.

I could give you a blow by blow...but I won't. Suffice to say that NOTHING we tried helped for very long. By 8:30 am she'd had 4 epsom salt baths, 2 doses of motrin, Quercitin, various massages, a heating pad, rice pillow, 3,457,239 ish position changes and virtually ZERO sleep.

Around 9:00 am I started calling all the health care professionals I knew...Scottish Rite...my pediatrician...my family doctor...my chiropractor. None were available. All said, "in case of emergency call 911". While that was definately a consideration...the Lord had another plan. See, I have a neighbor who is a chiropractor. His family are our good friends and fellow homeschoolers that I've spoken of before on this blog. I called on the outside chance that Dr. Bo was still home.

He was, and when he heard how bad Beanie was he raced over. For the rest of the day he was here about every 2 hours. He helped us move her safely. He helped adjust her gently. He counselled us on helpful pain management for nerve pain...and he is the one that figured out that it WAS nerve pain.

See, we'd been operating under the assumption that it was muscle pain...for muscle pain WARM is good...for nerve pain COLD is good. Now warm FELT good at the time, but it was bringing more and more inflamation to that nerve and, let's just say it's a very good thing he got there and corrected us when he did.

It's hard to explain how much pain she was in. My words fall phenomenally short. I guess I'll just say this, I now know EXACTLY what the words "screaming in agony" mean...and I'll tell you what...you don't WANT to know.

It's hard to explain how helpless we felt, watching her shake and scream in pain...not being able to touch her for fear of making it worse. Praying that she would sleep, only to watch her fall asleep and as soon as her body relaxed have her jerk awake with a scream because the weight of her body relaxing triggered that nerve once again.

It's hard to explain how in love with Bubba I fell once again when I watched him help his baby girl...as I watched him gently lift her and hold her dangling...the only position that didn't make her scream. As I watched him sit beside her helplessly while she clutched him, crying.

But it is NOT hard to tell you how OVER THE MOON I was this morning when she woke up and that nerve was no longer sore to the touch. When she was able to use the bathroom in private and was able to take the two steps into my arms from the toilet.

God did a miracle over here and you all need to know it. Go ahead and tell me she made it through the inflamation cycle...I don't care how it happened. I just know that she smiled today...she didn't cry even ONCE. I knew this morning when I woke up that I needed to be with her...and that if she was better SHE needed to come to church, however I could get her there.

When she finally woke up at 7am...I RAN to her. She didn't move...she said, "mom, I don't think anything hurts." I said, "Really?"...and then she started poking all the parts that we couldn't touch yesterday. Then I started moving her feet and her legs. Then I "walked" her to the bathroom...and she was right...she still couldn't walk unassisted but the majority of the touchable nerve pain was gone.

Technically, Dr. Bo said that something was wrong with her sacrum . He also said that the pain was firing along her lateral femoral cutaneous nerve. Why? I don't know. Sometime this week we should know...but for today all I know is that I spent from 11 pm until about 3 pm the next day afraid to touch my baby because I didn't want to hurt her anymore...so what's that?? 16 hours?...and from 3 until 9 watching her get better and better...so 6 ish hours...so 22 hours total terrified she'd taken her last step...and today she was given back to us...not perfect but wonderful nonetheless.

We have an appointment with Scottish Rite this week for BOTH Bean and Monkey Face. Beanie will be attending in a wheel chair for the first time. And she will be in a wheel chair NOT because of her Legg Perthes hip directly. They are going to have to tell me why.

Until then, I'm praising the Lord. I'm praising Him that Dr. Bo was there...that he loves her and that he was so kind. I'm praising Him that she feels so much better (the inflammation cycle can last up to 72 hours, so I'm expecting her to feel better still). I'm praising Him that we OWN a wheel chair. (that's a story for another time, but we do NOT own a wheel chair because our daughter has Legg-Perthes...the wheel chair pre-dates Legg-Perthes by AT LEAST a year.) I'm praising Him that we already HAVE an appointment on the books with Scottish Rite...I don't have to call and wait, we're in and right soon. I'm praising Him that she DID go to church this morning and she DID get to feel human for a couple of hours. I'm praising Him for how many people told me they loved me today...told me they WERE praying, had prayed, would be praying...people that didn't know the whole story, but felt like today was the day to say it.

Thank you, Jesus...Thank you.

See ya around...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Awww, poor thing. That must have been horrible. I have had back problems for many years, and know how excruciating nerve pain can be. :-( So very glad she's doing better. You are a wonderful mommy. I read something just this morning that made me think of you all. I'm sure you already know about all of this, but wanted to share the link(s) anyway. You'll have to scroll down on the first one to find the place where I found the second link. http://diagnose-me.com/cond/C76343.html http://diagnose-me.com/questionnaire/Q2770.html I will be praying for you all today.

~Kristi/winter