What a month. April was by far the craziest month we have faced since Harper joined our little family. First things first, we celebrated Easter with Harper a few days early because Will had to work on Easter. She loved following the trail of eggs the Easter Bunny left for her as well as her goodies, especially a wind up bunny. We would wind him up and she would kick him over and laugh ;) Easter weekend itself was not quite as fun. On Saturday Harper and I went to an Easter Egg hung in Brattleboro and then Dana and Ryan watched Harper while I went out to dinner. (Will was at home working.) When I got home from dinner we realized that Harper was not putting any weight on her right leg. We called the doctor and they told us to let her sleep on it and come to the ER the next day. Of course this was Easter Sunday and Will didn't go to work and drove down and took Harper to the ER with me. They did x-rays and suspected a toddler fracture so although the x-ray showed no break they put a little splint on and made an appointment for us on Thursday.
Harper wasn't a big fan of the splint and losing her mobility. We enjoyed Easter at the Houstons and we happy that Will was there to celebrate with us despite the circumstances. That Thursday Will and I took Harper to her pediatrician who took the splint off to see if Harper would walk on it. She also took another x-ray (no sign of break) and took some blood (traumatic for me more than Harper but the blood came back good.) She left the splint off thinking it was perhaps transient sinivitis (sp) which is a swelling in the joint that comes and goes without much reason. So we went home and tried to enjoy the weekend with out baby who still would not walk. Things were going well and she would take a few steps here and there until she had a high fever and we realized she was cutting four new teeth at the same time. Monday came and Harper still wasn't walking so we went back in to be checked again. We saw a different doctor on this day and she opted to take blood again just to be safe. When she called me with the results Harper's white blood cell count was up which was disconcerting to her and she consulted with Dartmouth Hitchcock here in Lebanon and they decided they wanted to see Harper in the ER that night. So Harper and I got back in the car to drive back to Lebanon, meet up with Will and go to the ER.
DHMC is a really impressive facility but they want to see their own x-rays and test their own blood so we had to put Harper through another round of x-rays, they started an IV and took a little more blood to test and they also took a urine sample with a catheter (poor Harper!) We were in the ER until like 11pm when they told us they were sending us home but wanted to see Harper first thing the next day. At that time they thought she had a urinary tract infection but were not positive and still concerned about the leg.
The next day we saw a pediatrician, pediatrician specializing in bones and lots of other doctors. They decided to do a bone scan of Harper's body so that they could narrow down where to look for a break or problem in her leg. This involved putting her under anesthesia while they did the procedure which was very stressful for us. The good news was that while she was sleeping they took the blood and urine samples they wanted for more tests so she did not have to go through that awake again. They were worried that the WBC may have been high due to a bone infection in the leg she would not use. The bone scan showed a problem in her right shin but that was all. The urine they took that time confirmed that she did in fact have a UTI. They wanted us to spend the night in the hospital that night just to be safe. The next day Harper had an MRI (anesthesia again) to look very closely at that shin area and low and behold they found a very tiny little toddler fracture in her tibia. At this point that and the UTI explained everything and were great news as compared to the alternative. Our last day at the hospital Harper enjoyed visits from Grandpa Gerry and Dana and her kids. We also had several visits from the guys that Will works with. They were all very helpful and supportive which was wonderful since our families don't live in the same town. We enjoyed our stay in the Childrens Hospital and feel very strongly that there's nothing better to make you realize things could be much much worse then spending some time in the children's wing of a hospital like DHMC. We feel very blessed that Harper's diagnosis was so minor and that we were able to take her home without even a cast. Since it had been 10 days already they only would have left the cast on for a few more so they were ok with letting her be. The next day she started walking around without holding our hands at all as she had been since the splint came off and the only memory of our time in the hospital was the antibiotics we had to give her twice daily and the baby sized hospital gown Will stole as we were leaving. This certainly was not an experience we will soon forget.
However April was a long month and beyond this it was filled with many wonderful things. We had another gathering with our new friends from Quechee. We enjoyed some beautiful weather and explored this funny thing called a deck that's attached to our house and believe me...it's fantastic! This weekend we celebrated Will's birthday with dinner courtesy of his mom and the most delicious cake I've ever had. On Will's actual birthday we had the pleasure of celebrating Jackson's baptism (the son of our Quechee friends Becky & Jason) and then went to softball practice (I even brough my glove circa 1989 that says KATHARINE GATZ on the side. I'm very good in case you were wondering ;) and after practice Pat and Steph came over and made Will a birthday dinner complete with goodies from Mike's Pastries for desert.
It was a good month and I'm sure I'm forgetting something but I can always update. May is also off to a great start with a trip to the museam today, baby yoga yesterday and little miss Harper is doing great at one long nap a day. She has also started giving those really great hugs where she grabs onto your neck and holds on tight. It's the best. We have our well baby 15 month visit tomorrow morning and we've planned a trip to Maine for a very overdue visit with Mr. Theo. We move into the new house at the end of June and all is well! Enjoy a few of our favorite photos from April!
Our Friday morning Easter celebration.
The day of the Easter Egg Hunt and the day Harper hurt her leg.
Baby sized splint.
We took Harper for a tour of the hospital in a shiny red wagon. She waved to everyone we passed like a princess.
High chairs for three please (in Harper's hospital room.)
