Wrist Injury (?)

Last Thursday, my 12 year old fell playing soccer in gym class. She came home after school that day, complaining her wrist hurt. In fact, she said, "I think I broke my arm again." Considering this is the same kid who hid a broken arm from me for 5 days, I sat up and took notice. In fact, I'd been writing the blog post about kids growing up, which is why that particular post ended rather abruptly and without a nice poignant closing. It had nothing to do with the fact that eloquence had failed me. Nope.

I took her to the doctor, that evening (LOVE that Layton IHC kids care!) and they did xrays. Said everything looked fine. They gave her a soft brace to wear and sent us on our way.

It's been 5 days now, and she's complaining that it still hurts a lot, and is having to take motrin around the clock. Her arm is still quite swollen, with visible bruising. She has such a high pain tolerance, that I was worried. In addition, her gym teacher was insisting on a doctor's note to excuse her any more from arm-related exercises from here on out.

This evening, I gathered up all four kids and took her back in. The doctor we saw decided we should get some more xrays. The nurse walked her over to radiology, and the tech immediately recognized K. She said, "The xrays aren't going to show anything different, it's been less than 7 days. I'm not going to xray her again."

The nurse took her back anyway. The tech stayed out front and got on the phone. The tech then got K and walked her back to the doctor's side, and told me xrays weren't taken because they wouldn't show anything different, and they were worried about radiation.

We waited in the exam room for a good 20-25 minutes, and the doctor came back and essentially told us the same thing, and that the radiologist suggested we not do more xrays.

She gave us a better, more supportive brace for dd's wrist (at my request), and an Rx to come back in a week from today for xrays if her arm still really hurts. I also had her write a note excusing her from any arm related exercise in gym class for a couple weeks. The receptionist wrote the note. Did you know crab walks/pushups ect (sic) can axacerbate (sic) her arm?

I shouldn't be mean though, the receptionist was really nice, and admitted she'd been there almost twelve hours and was dead on her feet.

I'm frustrated that I spent another copay and an entire evening there, and weren't able to check her arm again. Hopefully, this new brace will make her wrist feel better. The nice thing about that Rx we got is that we can go get an xray in a week if it's still feeling awful and NOT pay (yet another) copay.