Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Michael Foot Injury Update

Even several days after getting his cast off, Michael continued to have difficulty walking.  As we watched his heel during this time, it progressively got more purple and red.  Eventually it looked like a major blister.  My mom takes Michael to school in the mornings, and one morning she looked at it after I described it to her.  She immediately texted me after dropping him off at school and said he needed to go get it seen by the pediatrician just in case it was infected (again, foot injuries are something we can't play around with in conjunction with Type One Diabetes).

So Michael and I went to the doctor on Tuesday afternoon last week.  The pediatrician was very concerned.  She even brought in another doctor at the practice to look at it. They agreed that the best practice was to lance it and send a culture to the lab.  I knew what this meant.

The doctor told me exactly how to hold Michael (who weighs 59 pounds).  She explained to Michael what she would have to do, but instructed him to turn towards my face and not watch her.  She even brought in a nurse to help me remain a stead-hold as I held him.  The doctor had to lance it twice (she didn't get far enough in the first time).  I held Michael with everything I had.  My ears burned from his screams right into them.  The nurse beared down so hard on my shoulders as she aided in keeping me steady while Michael thrashed about (and I don't blame him one bit-- the procedure was extremely painful, especially when it had to be done twice at no fault of his own).  Once it was over though, Michael was so much better.  While the doctor was apologizing to him so sweetly for causing pain, the nurse brought him a bouncy ball.  The doctor was explaining that she had to send the fluid to the lab, and Michael's already teary eyes just spilled over into a flood of tears because all he heard was "flu" and he was so sad thinking that he had the flu!  He said "But I got a flu shot!"  The doctor and I both quickly assured him he did not have the flu.  :)  She called in a prescription for him for an antibiotic to aid the foot now that we would have to deal with an open wound on his heel. He was instructed not to wear a shoe until his foot completely heals.  We're 8 days past the lancing procedure now, and I think he might be able to wear a shoe tomorrow.

We were supposed to go to a follow up appointment on Thursday last week, but the doctor called me and told me that they had diagnosed so many children with the flu that day and she didn't want us exposed.  She gave me instructions for what to look for that would warrant a call-back, but that I should be able to handle the cleaning and monitoring of it myself.  I was so thankful that she called us to keep us from coming in!  We have been avoiding the flu so intently, and Michael is even out of school this week to avoid it since so many kids at his school got it.

His foot is looking so much better now!  The lab results showed nothing wrong with the fluid build-up.  No staph, no MRSA.  They said it was totally clear, meaning the issue on his heel was just a pressure blister from having a cast on.  We're so thankful!

Today, we're in a winter wonderland again (2-3" of snow).  I'm working from home.  Aaron's work is closed today.  Michael actually had to spend the night at my mother-in-law's house because Noah developed a fever yesterday and it took all day to get a prescription for Tamiflu called in for him (Michael already had a prescription for Tamiflu in case he got any flu symptoms, and as soon as Noah developed a fever, the nurse called in a prescription for him but it took us until 5:00pm yesterday to find a pharmacy that had it).  So Michael had to go to my mother-in-law's house just in case Noah does have the flu.  Hopefully we'll get to go pick up Michael today.  Our roads are covered in snow & ice and the EMA isn't expected to do any road clearing until this afternoon.

Until Next Time,
Much love, Reba



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