You Deserve a Break Today

I spent part of the 4th in the ER with my youngest. Being the strong, silent type (non-verbal), he wasn't able to tell me what happened. Around 10 a.m. he was unable to put any weight on his right foot. The pain was bad enough that he found some scissors and tried to find something to cut off the bottom of the foot (yes, I stopped him!)  Whenever he is hurt he tries to brush or cut it off. It in a literal way it makes sense.  Unfortunately it doesn't work that way.

After getting a look at the foot (which is a challenge when you can't touch) I could see nothing wrong, so off to the ER we went. He has an extremely high pain tolerance so I knew something was wrong.  He jumped/ran to the car on one foot when I told him we were going. Another clue that something is really wrong. The doctor was great and didn't even try to examine the foot until his anxiety was down. They then took 6 x-rays of the foot area. They only thing they discovered was some internal inflammation which went along with the slight external swelling. Diagnosis was a sprain. They wrapped the foot in an ace bandage and put a brace on it. Sent us home with instructions to keep the foot elevated and ice it throughout the day. We got home about 4 p.m. and by 5:30 he is limping around, doing his own thing. Friday morning he was running bare footed. I will call our pediatrician on Monday, but I thinking I don't need to do the ortho follow-up suggested by the ER.

Since the foot seemed fine, on Friday we headed to Brendan's Playground, an inclusive playground. On the way we stopped for lunch at McDonald's. We are working very hard to have him use his iPad for all communication, so I put his typical order to two buttons in Proloquo2Go - Double Cheeseburger and Large Soda. I also added "3 cookies" as a reinforcer for doing a good job ordering his own meal. He very reluctantly ordered his meal, but he did it!

This was our first trip to Brendan's Playground. In the past we have been to Zachary's Playground and loved it. I was hoping it would be just as good because it is much closer. We were not disappointed - it was wonderful. There was some shade, a great variety of swings and a water play area. Since it is less than 15 minutes from our house, I'm sure we will be going often. And including stops at McDonald's to work on the communication.