A Scary Halloween Tale...

You may wonder why you haven’t seen any pictures of Norah on Halloween.. I mean I post pictures of pretty much everything else, why not Halloween? Well, it’s because we missed it! Not the whole day, just the trick or treat part. Where were we, you might ask? Sadly, we spent it I the ER – yup, as in Emergency Room.

We actually had a great day up until that point, we went to a touch the truck event, spent some time playing the leaves, and I was relieved that Norah went down for a LONG nap, and was ready for the fun to come that evening. After she woke up, she caught sight of Matt working on something in the yard, and insisted on going outside, to see what was up.

After a couple of minutes chatting over the fence with one of the neighbors, we came back to inspect the work Matt had been doing on the shed, and talk about our plan for the rest of the day. It was a really windy day, and the leaves were falling off the trees at an incredible rate! That wind also caught the door that Matt had been working on, and blew it over – and it landed on Norah! All three of us screamed, we picked Norah up, and I tried to calm her while Matt made sure she was OK – it had hit her on the back and we were concerned about her neck and head. After a few minutes, she seemed to return to her usual self and we counted our blessings that she seemed to have escaped unscathed.

Unfortunately, a few minutes later, when I took her inside, I realized she wasn’t putting any weight on her right leg – first I thought it was rocks in her shoes, then that she was just clingy, but I soon realized that she must have hurt her leg when the door fell over. Matt and I immediately took her to the hospital, where they took X-rays and generally checked her out. While I’d say she’s not crazy about any of the folks in white coats, she was brave and did very well. The overall result, however, was inconclusive – it seems she may have a growth plate fracture… whatever that was! We were instructed to keep her off her foot and see an orthopedist on Monday.

We got home, and of course the first thing I did was get on the internet and try to figure out what a growth plate fracture was all about. I could see that Matt was really beating himself up about what had happened, thinking that it was his fault. It wasn’t, of course, it was an accident, but I could understand where he was coming from. We ad no choice but to wait until Monday to get her in to see an orthopedist, so Sunday was spent explaining, and trying to keep Norah occupied, while sitting down. Thank goodness for strollers, shopping carts and the Veggie Tales DVD we had just picked up on Friday!

Getting to the point of it all, Norah is going to be fine… we didn’t get in to see the doc until Monday afternoon. Matt stayed home with Norah and I went to the office, but, after Friday and the silly parade, I knew I wanted to go to the doc with them – Matt is more than capable, but I know myself, and I wanted to be there. He looked at her Xrays and her leg, then asked her to talk, without the splint… to our relief, she did! She limped a little, and even today, is still limping a little, but she walked on it and didn’t cry out in pain! Hooray! It’s likely just a bruise of some sort and as long as she continues to improve, we’re to assume she is A-OK! She has a follow up scheduled for next week, but if we’re not concerned, he said to just cancel it.

So, that was our sordid Halloween story… it was by far the scariest Halloween ever for us!