I was starting to believe that the limping was all done, and that update two was the last of the updates. But we have at least one more.
Peter's limp had resolved, as far as I could confidently determine. Toddlers walk pretty funny anyway so it's hard to know for sure. I wasn't seeing anything especially worrisome so we just in "wait and watch" mode.
Yesterday Peter was sitting on the couch next to me and he hopped off, just a little hop, and somehow landed funny and fell to his right. It was one of those falls where if it had happened to me, I would have rolled my ankle for sure, but those kind of falls happen to kids all the time and they just get back up and keep running. That's what I expected with this one.
Peter cried when he fell, and was saying ow and pointing to his foot(?) (I think anyway, he's still not very good at articulating his pain). Then when he started trying to walk again, he would take a few steps and start to cry and say ow again. That had never happened before, he has always bounced back after that initial cry. That made me pretty worried but he was not one to be slowed down, and within five or ten minutes he wasn't acting upset anymore, but he had a limp again. This time favoring his right leg.
It's hard to know when to be worried, so I just watched it yesterday. He wasn't acting bothered by it except for the slight limp.
This was him yesterday afternoon. You can tell it's not a very exaggerated limp.
This morning he was still limping so I called Doc back just to see if it was worth worrying about. He said that it sounded like the fall happened because he's overcompensating for something on his left side, and they wanted me to bring him in again. That caught me off guard. It's weird to be so used to calling the doctor as a final confirmation that it's no big deal and there's nothing to worry about, and then all the sudden they change things up and say "bring him in!".
They want to x-ray his feet and ankles. They hadn't done that before because it always seemed like more of a hip thing. They were able to get us in tomorrow though, which is awesome. So at least I won't be wondering and worrying for long.
I'm sort of expecting there to be nothing, again. I don't even know if an answer at this point would be good or bad news. If they still don't see anything, part of me is wondering if he hurt himself initially, and then never stopped limping. That the limp is more of a learned behavior than a result of pain, and now it's throwing off his balance and things like that. If that is the case it would probably just be a matter of lots of activity for him in hopes of that fading away.
I'll post another update tomorrow after our visit. I'd tell you to cross your fingers for me, but I don't even know what I'm hoping for.
