October 2005

October 2005 – I’m not sure if it’s because Amanda thought she needed more of a challenge, but she somehow managed to sprain her knee. We were in Niagara Falls for a little get away when she somehow stepped funny in the hotel room and fell like a ton of bricks. She was unable to put more than very little weight on that leg. We made her as comfortable as possible, giving her Tylenol and ice packs and put her to bed with some pillows. We were heading home in the morning anyway so I guess we were just going to leave a little earlier than we thought!

We got back in to town and decided that we should probably get her checked out. Tim dropped us off at the hospital while he and Sara went to take the luggage home. I didn’t think four of us needed to spend hours in Emerg! After about ½ hr, the doc dropped in and I explained Amanda’s extensive history to him. He ordered some x-rays and we waited. When he returned with the results, he figured it was just a sprain. He offered to put a needle in her knee and drain some of the fluid – something I promptly declined!! We got her a set of crutches and headed home.

On Monday morning, I contacted both Amanda’s physiotherapist from the Arthritis Society and the rheumatologist. Sue from the A.S. came over a day or two later and checked her out, and gave her some stretches to do. We got in to see the rheumatologist fairly quickly. Amanda had a very noticeable contracture in her leg – she wasn’t straightening it very well. He got on the phone and called over to an orthopaedic surgeon at HSC who agreed to see her the next day. Tim took her back to Toronto where the surgeon said he also thought it was just a bad sprain and it would probably take a little more time to heal since she had a mild flare in that joint already. Apparently it takes months to get into see that surgeon so it was obvious Dr. Feldman pulled a few strings to get us in quickly!

It took some time – probably a good two weeks – before Amanda was able to get off of the crutches. And probably another two weeks after that before she was healed from the sprain. Well, gotta say one thing about that girl – she gives everything 110%!