Better Late Then Never

Can you see the toothpick? All the other pictures I took you couldn't see it for some strange reason.

Looks pretty big to me.

The whole "toothpick incident" happened 7 months ago. In a nutshell, Jax stepped on something and said his foot was hurting bad. We looked at it and saw nothing, so we put some ice on it and told him to go to sleep. He was up randomly throughout the night screaming in pain. The next day he wouldn't put any weight on his foot and I had to keep him home from preschool b/c he couldn't walk. The day after that I called the doctor and took him in. I have to admit I was feeling pretty silly about the whole situation and my son hopping next to me minus a shoe and sock.

The doctor looked at it and said he didn't see anything either and that it was probably just sore. He prescribed some antibiotic cream and said if it wasn't better in a couple days to call him. Sure enough, a couple days later he was still NOT walking on it. Throughout all this time he was saying that it hurt bad, but it wasn't that big a deal, except for the no walking part. He is such a tough kid. So, we call the doctor and we take Jax to American Fork Hospital for an ultrasound of his foot. The tech thought she saw something, but she wasn't sure. Next we headed for the x-ray machine. He had to get several from different angles and I couldn't be there with him b/c I was pregnant. He toughed it out though.


After waiting in the room for a while, we were summoned to the head radiologist office to meet with him and take a phone all with our pediatrician. The consensus was that they weren't sure if there was something there or not. Great. Just what I wanted to hear. The options were to wait and see or do an exploratory surgery. At this point I said surgery. I KNEW that something was in there b/c Jax is not a baby and he was hurting. After meeting with the orthopedic surgeon we decided to to the surgery with just a numbing shot in the office b/c of Jax's heart problems. We didn't want to risk putting him to sleep. They usually don't allow this for 4 year olds b/c they can't hold still and freak out, but after meeting Jax the doctor thought he could handle it.


The day of the surgery came (I think like 2 weeks after this had all started --poor Jax) and he had his foot lifted up on the table while he laid his head in my lap. They brought out the biggest needle I've ever seen (seriously) and stuck it all the way through his foot from the top to bottom. After he was numb it was sliced open and the doctor started digging around. I was started to get worried that all this was for nothing b/c it seemed like he couldn't find anything. Sure enough, the doctor turned to me and asked if I was sure there was something in there. DUH, if I knew we wouldn't be doing "exploratory" surgery. Jax spoke up and said, "I think it might be a toothpick." I asked if he was sure and he said no, but it could be. The doctor decided to look around his foot one more time and all of a sudden he pulled out the huge piece of toothpick. It is actually about half of a toothpick. Jax was so happy. We couldn't believe that something so big was in there all along and nobody had been able to tell and the doctor had almost put his foot back together with it still in.


He got his foot stitched up and wrapped in blue bandages and hobbled out to the car. We were all so relieved for the ordeal to be over. Jax is super proud of his toughness and I have been promising to post this ever since it happened. Well, here it is.