Nothing can prepare you for a toddler with a broken leg. I certainly wasn’t prepared or even slightly aware of a possibility that it might happen to my little girl.
It was just a regular Sunday. Grandpa was taking my 2-year old daughter Lyla to a children’s Purim festival at a local park while I went to the spa with my girlfriend – the first time I got away to do something for myself in months. Hubby had to work.
That morning I had an uneasy feeling when I dropped her off. I tried to shake it off but I was worried. Mother’s intuition?
I wanted to hug and kiss her and tell her “I love you,” but I just drove off, not wanting to trigger her separation anxiety. She usually cries when she sees me leave so we avoid goodbyes.
I’m still haunted by the vision of her standing in grandparents’ driveway in her pink chiffon dress and sparkly butterfly wings, watching me drive away.
As I was driving to the spa, the anxiety intensified, but again I pushed it out of my mind.
I was barely finished with the massage when the receptionist peeked in and said: “Are you Lana? Your husband called. He said there is an emergency.”
My heart got cold, as if someone dropped it in icy water. I called grandpa. He sounded sullen and confused. Said she was sliding down an inflatable slide and she hurt her leg.
I called my husband. He was already there. He talked fast, his voice strained from distress. I could hear my daughter crying in the background.
He said: “Something’s wrong. She never cries like that. We need to go to the emergency room.”
We need to go to the emergency room.
Here are the words no parent wants to say or hear, and I hope you never do. But that’s what my husband said, and then he added: “Her leg might be broken.”
I remember getting so angry at him for saying it. Why must he be such an alarmist? Why must he always go to the worst case scenario? I fired back: “She did not break her leg! She’s fine!“
But she wasn’t fine. She kept crying even when I got there. She said “It hurts” as she pointed to her lower leg.
It didn’t look swollen or bruised, no visible damage. But my daughter was clearly in pain.
Without wasting any more time we got into the car and drove to the Alvarado Hospital emergency room.
I wish I knew that we were supposed to go to children’s ER
But we were too panicked to think about which ER is better. We just went to the nearest one.
We were admitted almost right away. The nurse asked us some questions and took my daughter’s vitals. She was especially insistent on knowing her exact weight. Then they told us to get her X-rays done.
We silently followed the tech as he led us into a darkened room with an X-ray machine. He told me to wait outside (“gotta protect the ovaries”), then gave my husband what looked like a black apron, which was a lead radiation shield. But he didn’t put anything on my 2-year old daughter.
I wish I demanded that they put a protective shield on her too
Only her leg needed to be X-rayed. It seemed odd that they practically put my husband in a hazmat suit and didn’t even let me stay in the room because I might have more children in the future. But it was OK to radiate my toddler.
I really wish I said something or insisted that I stay in the room too, but it was such a blur. It was like I was in a bad dream and I couldn’t wake up.
The radiology tech finally finished and told us in a cheery voice that her leg looks great. “Don’t worry, it’s probably a sprained ankle.” We all breathed a sigh of relief and my husband left to repark the car. Five minutes later the doctor came in and told me that she broke her leg.
I struggled to comprehend his words. “What? Are you sure?”
He seemed amused by my incredulity. “Yeah, no I’m sure. It’s broken.”
I still insisted that he must be wrong. “But we were just told that her leg is fine.”
The doc smiled indulgently. “The tech told you? Oh he doesn’t know what he’s looking at. You want to see the X-rays? It’s a spiral fracture. It’s pretty bad.”
My heart fell into the icy water again. I tried not to look at grandpa who sat on the chair in the corner of the room. Neither one of us said a word.
When my husband came back in, I could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t know. I inhaled and said as quickly and as calmly as I could: “The doctor just said her leg is broken. It’s a big fracture but a simple one. The growth plate is intact. She’ll wear a cast but it’s gonna be fine. It’ll heal completely.”
My husband had trouble believing it too. He kept asking me if it’s for sure, and then he had a million questions. So I asked for the doc to come back and explain everything to him in person. He also showed us the X-rays.
It was official: her leg was broken. And yet we still couldn’t believe it.
It didn’t help that all the medical personnel treated us like this was a curious case of Benjamin Button. One guy actually said: “Wow, I’ve never seen such a small child with a broken leg.”
I wish I knew then that this is a common injury for toddlers, not an abnormality
Fracture of the tibia is the most common fracture for kids between the ages of 9 months and 3 years. In fact, it’s also called a “toddler fracture.”
Toddlers are very active and inquisitive, and their bones are still fragile. It can happen bouncing on a trampoline, falling down the stairs, or just jumping off the couch. It’s normal, it’s not the end of the world.
But at that moment we were completely devastated. A nurse came in to put a temporary cast on her. My baby was exhausted and terrified. She screamed every time anyone touched her.
They squirted some Motrin in her mouth, she screamed even more. But the painkiller helped. At some point she even dozed off. Until they started touching her leg.
Finally, they applied the splint, and we left with the instructions to give her pain meds every 2-3 hours, and to go to the children’s hospital for a permanent cast.
The doc said: “You can go today, or tomorrow, or in a week. The splint is fine for now but you’ll need a cast soon.” He also said that she’s gonna feel fine tomorrow. Liar.
As soon as we got home from the hospital I set up a nice place for her on the couch with blankets and pillows. I wanted her to be as comfortable as possible.
I also propped her leg up on the pillow, to prevent the fluid buildup and swelling. She watched cartoons and actually looked pretty damn happy.
Grandparents came in the evening, and they all set around her like it was a viewing and talked about her leg incessantly. About how horrible it is, and what a pity, and what a long a difficult recovery we have ahead of us…
I wish I knew to tell them all to shut up
It’s important to keep a positive optimistic atmosphere around a child that’s sick or had an accident or is just going through something. We don’t think that kids listen to us but they do.
You gotta be very careful about what you say around your kid. If I could re-do it, I wouldn’t even mention a broken leg in front of her or anything being broken.
The day went by OK but the night was something else. It was one of the worst nights of my life, and her life I’m sure.
She woke up every 2 hours crying and pointing to the leg. So every time I’d give her a new dose of a painkiller and try to lull her back to sleep.
Sometimes she’d fall asleep almost right away. Other times she just kept crying and crying, and I was quietly crying with her. I felt so helpless. It’s the worst feeling in the world when you see your child in pain, and you can’t do anything to help them.
The problem was, the splint was a glorified band-aid. Basically, they bandaged her leg to a flat surface to stabilize it, but it wasn’t truly stable. Every time she made the slightest move, she had a piercing pain and it was almost unbearable, my poor baby.
I wish I knew that a cast is much better than a splint in terms of pain management
I never had a broken limb, and even if I did, I don’t think I could have known this one. The way that doctor made it sound was that the splint is as good as the cast, at least for a short while, and we can go get the cast done whenever.
So the next morning she was still in pain, and we went to the ER again. This time, children’s ER at Rady Children’s Hospital. The personnel were very nice and attentive and they certainly didn’t treat her injury as something out of the ordinary. The resident doctor reassured us that it happens all the time and that at that age bones heal quickly and that she will make a full recovery.
She also told us that she will have to wear a cast for a month, not 2-3 months as they told us at the first ER.
Things started looking up a bit. Then the orthopedic tech came in and asked: “Pink, right?” I nodded with a smile.
He wrapped her leg up, and my little girl was so brave and stoic. She kept her leg still and the tech did his job with impressive speed. He said: “She won’t be in pain anymore. The cast keeps her leg fixed in one position.”
The leg was still bothering her later that day, but not as badly as on the first day. She slept through the night and could even turn on her side.
The worst first 48 hours were finally behind us. We weren’t out of the woods yet, but we were certainly on our way.
Related: 7 Things You Need to Know About Your Toddler Broken Leg Recovery
More on the subject: How to Avoid Constipation When Your Toddler Broke a Leg
Lana is a San Diego-based copywriter, blogger, book author, and WAHM. Her super powers are sarcasm and making chocolate disappear. When she’s not working on her blogs or completing her doctorate in psychology, Lana enjoys crime mysteries, travel, and, regrettably, reality TV.