Unexpected Visit

On Friday we flew to Denver to visit our friends, Jeff and Molly.  We haven't seen them in a long time so it was fun to catch up and see their son, Gabe, who is only a few months younger than Amanda.  It was also fun to expose the kids to their Jack Russell Terrier, that Amanda sort of warmed up to about 15 minutes before we were supposed to leave.

The part that was not fun?  Visiting the Emergency Room on Friday night.  Let me back up.  The flight to Denver went pretty well, quick and not to painful.  We got our bags and got onto the rental car bus and that's when I noticed something.  Sarah was sitting across from me on the bus.  I happened to look at her feet and see that her ankle bones, not her entire foot or ankle, were swollen.  Really swollen.  They looked like she had super balls on the sides of her feet.

This was not right.  My feet have swollen on fights before, but nothing like this.  Immediately I thought of Deep Vein Thrombosis.  I told Charlie we had to go to the Emergency Room, it could not wait until morning.  We called the on-call neurologist, which her surgeon told us to call if anything weird happened, and he said it had nothing to do with her surgery, but it would be a good idea for someone to look at it.  Wanting a second opinion, we also called the off hours pediatrician line and talked to a nurse practitioner.  Did I mention it was about 11 p.m. in Denver so midnight in Dallas?

The end result was, she needed to get checked out sooner than later.  So, Charlie dropped Sarah and me off at the closest children's hospital, which thankfully turned out to be fabulous, and then dropped Andy and Amanda off at Jeff and Molly's before returning to get us.  I talked to the doctor, told her Sarah's medical history, and she looked her over.  No infection, no fever, no idea whatsoever.  Not her fault and not for trying, it was just bizarre.  The weird part was that it was symmetrical, both ankles.

They sent her off to have sonograms on her legs to look for blood clots and found nothing.  In the end, we left the hospital with no idea what was wrong with her, but knew that it wasn't anything life threatening.  We did leave with a cute little stuffed bear, that they gave her when they brought her back to her exam room.  I think it's name is officially Cubby, but I like to call it the $300 bear.  I don't know exactly how much that trip to the ER is going to cost us because we didn't have to pay a dime at the time, but we'll see how close I am.

I'm so glad that Sarah is okay and I truly don't care how much it cost to make sure that was the case, but I do feel so bad for her.  At one point she asked, "Why do things always happen to me?" and I didn't have an answer.  Lately it seems like that truly is the case.  Everything happens to her.  Luckily our experience was painless and positive or she would still be talking about how wronged she was.  The rest of the weekend went on without incident and she acted perfectly fine, except for a lack of sleep.

Next week is her follow up with her neurosurgeon.  Four weeks since her surgery.  Hopefully the swelling will be completely gone by then, but if not it would be nice if he could give us some answers.  All I want is for my little girl to be happy, is that too much to ask?