Two Birds With One Stone!

Getting his head marked for EEG placement

Some people are naturally very efficient. They always have a plan and are great at sticking to it. Their houses are always organized and they never forget to feed a child because they can't keep track of who is home and who isn't. I'm NOT one of those people. When you have a larger than typical family, however, learning efficiency is vital. I have had to learn how to plan things out and prepare things in advance. Sometime I have no choice but to be two places at once and to meet the needs of two children at once. This requires a lot of planning and judicious tag-teaming. If you are looking at the pictures you might be wondering what this has to do with Owen's EEG, well I'm getting to that.

Rod and I both wanted to attend Owen's appointment yesterday, since this EEG is vital to determining which direction to take with his new ESES diagnosis. We weren't sure if we would get to go over the results with the doctor that day or not, but neither of us wanted to miss it if we did (we didn't, so we'll have to wait for the followup visit). The day before the appointment Duncan came home from his cousins house limping a little. He didn't say anything about being hurt and I was busy getting dinner ready, so I ignored it for a while. After dinner, he was still limping so we decided to take a look. He still hadn't told us he was hurting, but after we asked him, he said that he had slipped while playing. I looked at his ankle and the inside was swollen to about double normal size. We put ice on it and had him elevate it and go to bed. The next morning, we got everything ready to head to Seattle and then went to check Duncan. The swelling hadn't gone down at all and there was a big, hard, lump. So, we quickly debated what to do and decided to take him with us. We've had good luck with the ER at Swedish before, and since we were going to be at the hospital anyway, why not kill two birds with one stone?

So, we got to Seattle (after 3 hours) and checked Owen in for his EEG. I stayed with Owen while Rod took Duncan downstairs to the Emergency Department. The ER was particularly busy yesterday, so they got kicked out of their room and got to sit in the hallway instead. They actually got X-rays and saw the nurse pretty quickly, but had to wait over an hour for the doctor to sign off on discharge papers.

The good news is we still hold our record for no broken bones! Seriously 7 kids and never a broken bone. The bad news is that he has a serious contusion(bruise) of the ligament, which is why it was all lumped up. He's supposed to keep it splinted for a while and not put much weight on it, so he has a nice little gel splint and a pair of crutches to use for a while. We're keeping it elevated and icing it several times a day. We were told that it could take several months to a year to heal completely, he shouldn't have to be on crutches anywhere near that long though. This was actually the first time Duncan had ever been to the hospital as a patient, he was even born at home. Owen thought it was great that he wasn't the only patient that day! Duncan and Rod finished up in ER and made it back upstairs just as we were finishing Owen's EEG and removing the probes. Talk about perfect timing! Then we fed Owen his meal, got a chocolate milkshake for Duncan and a snack for Rod, Duncan, and I and headed home.

We left the hospital at 4:20 which would usually be a death sentence for Seattle traffic, but it was pretty smooth. We made it home in 3 hours even with a stop for dinner. Now, I just need to schedule our followup with the doctor to see what our next step will be with Owen's treatment.