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Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Chance wounds his knee

This past week was spring break and Chance had a really good time not going to school and hanging out with cousins.

He also started to learn some new long boarding tricks.  Just as he was in the middle of doing that, he fell and whammed his  knee.  Really hard.  His knee had a nice big raspberry wound on the side and was a little swollen.  We put a band-aid on it and Chance left with his cousins to make his own long board since his cousins work for a guy that makes them.

When I picked Chance up several hours later, he was grinning from ear to ear holding up his own custom made long board.  While still smiling, Chance said,"Hey mom!  Check at my knee!"

His knee was HUGE.

Chance's uncle is a physicians assistant so he felt around the knee and wrapped it in an ace bandage telling Chance to ice it.  Then we left for our 10 hour drive home.

This morning, two days later, Chance's knee was still huge so I took him in to see the doctor.  On the way to the doctor's office, Chance informed me that he really hates needles and would rather ride a shark than get poked with a needle.  I wonder how he really feels.

Once the doctor took a look at Chance's knee, he told us that Chance's knee was filled with a lot of blood and gave us two options:  keep a wrap on the knee, ice it regularly and let his body absorb the blood,  OR he could poke a needle into Chance's knee and drain out the blood.

I chose the needle option.  It would help the knee heal faster.  Chance told me that he needed to get back to the soccer field as soon as possible as he has three games this week.  I realized that Chance would most likely not make any of his games this week, but draining the blood would help the knee heal faster it seemed.

The doctor thought this was the best option as well, and he proceeded to pull out a HUGE needle.  Chance looked concerned.  The doctor told him that he would numb the skin first and that would feel like a bumble bee sting.  Chance sighed and lay down on the exam table and started to play a game on an iPod to distract himself.

The doctor told him not to move, that was very important, but that if things started to hurt, Chance could call out and he would adjust  things.

Some of Chance's siblings were with us, and it took a moment for me to convince them that they could not look on at the proceedings with  looks of horror on their faces with their hands over their mouths like they were doing when the process started.  We all had to be strong for Chance.

I stood with my hand on Chance's shoulder for moral support and distracted the other kids with games of tic tac toe.

Things did hurt, and Chance told the doctor twice that he was feeling pain in his knee. After only a few minutes, Chance's knee was visibly smaller and the HUGE vile attached to the needle was full of Chance's blood.  At this point, Chance was calm and started asking questions about what would be done with his blood now. The doctor gave him a brief explanation and sent us home.  He said that if Chance's knee filled with blood again tomorrow, we would need to check for other issues.  Chance was instructed to elevate his knee, ice it several times today, and stay off of it.  That meant he would not be going back to school.  Chance took that news quite well.  He will be resting his knee tomorrow as well.

This afternoon, we got a call from the doctor's office.  When the doctor sat down later in the day to finish the notes on Chance's file, he started to feel that it would be a good idea to get an x-ray since so much blood had been taken out of the knee to check for other problems.

The x-ray came back and things looked good.  Chance and I looked at the x-ray with the doctor and he pointed out that the knee looked normal with no fractures etc. The doctor pointed out  Chance's growth plates and said that he would be getting taller.  Chance was delighted to hear this news.  He is already getting tall, but taller is even better.

Luckily for Chance, I emailed all of his teachers so his brother could pick up all assignments and homework he was missing:)

As far as soccer goes, the soccer coach at school is having a challenging week.  Chance's position on the team is left wing and his good friend plays left wing as well.   As luck would have it, Chance's friend hurt his knee on spring break too so he is on crutches.  Today at school Chance's friend was nice enough to share one of his crutches with Chance, until I picked him up for his appointment halfway through the day. When Chance was called down to the office where I was waiting, it was lunch time and he was all smiles limping along with the help of one crutch.
The soccer team will be minus two left wing players this week.   Chance should be ready to play again next week. I don't know about his friend.  I did tell Chance though,that if his friend ends up needing to stay home from school tomorrow, that he can come over here and they can play card games together as they elevate and ice their knees.



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