The other day, I was doing laundry so I removed the baby gate from the top of the stairs that lead to our den. Savannah was taking a nap at the time, so I knew it would be okay. When she got up we went to the store, then when we got back we ate dinner… and I completely forgot about the gate. After dinner I had to clean up so I just put her in the living room and went about my tasks.

Next thing I knew, there were a few thumps and then a scream. Savannah had fallen down the stairs in to the den! I have never seen Paul move so fast, as the two of us bolted from where we were standing. He got to her first, and picked her up and comforted her. It took about an hour for the two of us to calm her down – she wouldn’t even nurse. I was concerned about how she was doing, so we kept her up an extra hour just to make sure she didn’t have a concussion or anything. The last hour, we let her scoot around the floor again (WITH the baby gate up!) and she seemed just fine.

The next day, she was definitely favoring her right leg. At Paul’s insistence, I took her to the pediatrician who told me that I needed to get an x-ray. This was Tuesday – I had a scheduled appointment with a pediatric orthopedic surgeon the next day (Wednesday) to figure out why Savannah won’t put weight on her feet. My pediatrician called the ortho to see if I could get in on Tuesday instead, and set up an appointment at the end of the day.

We waited at the ortho FOR-EV-ER but Savannah was pretty good, all things considered (not having napped at all and being in pain). I just had to be really careful not to bump her foot. I was still thinking it was a sprain, and hoping that this wouldn’t hurt our attempts to figure out if there was anything wrong with her hips and move forward with physical therapy. When we were finally called back, they took an x-ray and told me that Savannah had fractured her leg just above her ankle. Poor baby! :-( They also said that we have to wait for it to heal before we can work on her not-standing problem.

Savannah got a purple cast (I picked the color! :-)) and we have been adapted to this new reality. So far, nights have been the worst – with her fussing for hours in the middle of the night, and a refusal to nap during the day. I quickly discovered that Motrin is our best friend for the pain – Tylenol doesn’t seem to work as well. Also, she *hates* taking her medicine – it really takes 2 people, so it’s very difficult when Paul has already left for work. I have only needed to give her the Motrin at night and in the wee hours of the morning though. Daytime she seems to do a ton better. She is starting to get more brave about scootching around despite the huge cast on her leg. And she’s also learned it makes cool noises when you bang things against it, and also when you bang it against the ground. This morning she tested out kicking Mommy in the face with her cast. What fun!

She gets it off on September 28th, and the orthopedic surgeon (who was SO nice!) is going to check her hips then. Best case scenario, nothing is “wrong” and we just move forward with physical therapy.

The good news is we’re really close to reaching our out-of-pocket max for Savannah! Hopefully we can get her physical therapy taken care of in 2010. This has *not* been our year, health-wise! I never realized a baby would be so expensive!