There was normal morning chaos happening in the house on Tuesday. Lunches were being packed, kids getting breakfasted, and dogs, chickens and the sort running about under our feet. Hubby was driving the kids to school and down in the field packing up supplies with our little dude.
Still in my bathrobe and slippers, I heard my eldest calling me. She just told me “Si has been hurt” I slipped on shoes, and ran down to the field where hubs was holding the little dude and he was SCREAMING.
It was a full on PAIN scream. A blue scream! He was grabbing his shoulder and any movement would set him off. My initial thought was that he had broken his arm, or dislocated his shoulder somehow, but everything felt fine when I checked him out and hubby said he hadn’t fallen. It had just “happened” when he was standing there.
We rushed off to the hospital ER and they moved us right into a bed based on the noise of the little man. The pain never lessened and the only thing that helped was stabilizing his shoulder and elbow (again, I am thinking dislocation)
Force feeding him some pain killers, cutting of his shirt and a team of health care professionals all standing around us confounded by what happened.
How can a healthy little boy, standing in a field, suddenly be in this much pain.
As the meds soaked in, hubby took the girls to school and I was able to wrangle the dude in for X-rays.
X-rays were clear, there were no marks on the dude (we thought maybe a wasp sting at one point) and everything seemed fine. . . except the pain.
By process of elimination it was decided that little dude had WRY neck, or Torticollis. It can come on in children when they have a bug or virus, but 50% of the time is just spontaneous and caused by a simple movement that fires up the Sternocleidomastoid (SCM) Muscle in the neck (the one that goes from below your ear to your clavicle/breastbone)
Our poor little dude was locked in position, with his head turned to the right and still in intense pain. Treatment? Heat. Massage. Rest (and apparently ICE CREAM)
He was so locked up he couldn’t walk, and could barely eat. He was most frustrated that he couldn’t yawn (i would be too, especially after being his slave all day) I would need to carry him to the bathroom, and feed him.
A full day on the couch, and sleeping on my chest, and a rough night of pain, he finally agreed to take some tylenol without freaking out (our kids just never liked the taste) About two hours after that, things loosened up enough to walk. Hours later I found him on his bike in the front yard, and playing in the sunshine. He event spent the afternoon gardening with me.
He is still stiff, and his mobility isn’t back 100%, but the searing pain is gone. We have been told he will continue to loosen up as the days go by. We will keep up with the warm baths and, of course, the ice cream.
What made the whole thing even worse was that as I was running back and forth to him, I was also dealing with an 8yr old with the stomach flu . . . whew – wednesday certainly tested my mom skills.
Fingers crossed we have both the WRY neck and the Flu beat now! Otherwise, I am off to the store for more ice cream.