Alison spent most of last night in the emergency room.

Our anniversary was earlier this week, so the three of us went out to dinner last night to celebrate. Alison was filthy when she came home from school, crawling around in the dirt on the playground, I guess, so after we did her e-stim, she changed her clothes and got washed up and we went to eat. We got home in time for her to go outside and play for a little bit before getting ready for bed and Kevin went in to help her get changed back into her dirty clothes. He was putting her sock on when he noticed her ankle was hugely swollen and somewhat warm. Because she can't feel that foot, we didn't know what she did or when she did it and we had no way of knowing if it was something serious or not, so off to the ER we went.

It was a very busy night in the ER. We waited 2 hours in the waiting room before a room opened up for us. Then the room we got was the ENT room so it had an exam chair instead of a bed. We keep a couple of little pillows (that she was given after x-rays at U of M) and a small blanket in the car, so we had gotten them while we were still out in the waiting room with the futile hope that she might settle down and rest a little since it was past bedtime. She was exhausted by the time we got called back so we finally got her to curl up on the chair with her pillow, blanket and stuffed cat that she had just been given and within a few minutes she was sound asleep. It was almost an hour later before she was finally seen by a doctor, and she slept through his exam. She was rather dazed and confused about what was going on when we had to wake her up to load her into a wheelchair so she could go to x-ray. She did a great job in x-ray, despite wanting to roll over, curl up and go back to sleep when they needed her to lie flat.

Fortunately, we were on the fast track by that point. It didn't take very long after we got back before the doctor was showing me that it did not appear that her ankle was broken. He showed me the growth plates and how it might look like there was separation, but that it was within the normal range. If the radiologist looked at it today and felt that it did look like a fracture, they would call us. We didn't hear anything. Because she already wears a DAFO, he sent her home with an Ace wrap and we're supposed to have her wear it for 2-3 days and keep her off her feet as much as possible this weekend. The nurse going over her discharge instructions was a little confused that there was nothing about follow-up, but that's because she had plenty already scheduled. Alison will be seeing Dr. Hurvitz at Spina Bifida clinic on Thursday, seeing her ped for a well check the next Wednesday, and seeing Dr. Craig for an ortho follow up the Wednesday after that. Three appointments in three weeks. The ER doc sent us home with copies of the x-rays so we could take them to all of our appointments in case anyone wants to see them.

By the time we were finally ready to go, it was midnight. But since I knew we'd be going home when it was all over, instead of waitng forever and then being admitted, I didn't care that we were the for 3 1/2 hours. We all slept in this morning and Alison has been laid out in front of the tv for most of the day - Playhouse Disney all morning, Finding Nemo and Beauty and the Beast in the afternoon and now Snow White tonight. Tomorrow we're going to an apple orchard with our church group, so we're working on a way for her to enjoy herself and still keep off her foot as much as possible.