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Yesterday goes down in the record books as one of my least favourite days of parenting thus far. I made Liam an appointment to see our family doctor for his sore knee, thinking I was just going to be told that he had pulled a muscle and sent home. But no. The initial diagnosis was transient synovitis of the hip, but after seeing Liam walk around a bit - and by this point (11:30 a.m.) he was really not even capable of walking - the doctor feared that it could possibly be septic arthritis of the hip which is pretty serious (as in, requires-IV-antibiotics-and-possibly-surgery-serious). We were immediately sent to the hospital for X-rays, blood tests, and a referral to a specialist.

After all of that, it turns out that Liam does only have the downgraded transient synovitis. In a nutshell, remember Liam's stomach bug from about two weeks ago?... well, the virus from that lingered in his body and settled into his hip joint, basically giving him a wicked case of inflammation and reducing his mobility to just about zero. He was in tears every time I had him in and out of the car, pulled his pants down so he could use the bathroom or be examined by a doctor, picked him up or set him down (and these things were all happening repeatedly all day long, since we were shuffling between appointments and he couldn't walk on his own.) Basically, anything that so much as nudged his hip just about drove him crazy. We did not get home from all of the appointments until dinner time, so there was no nap yesterday, either, which did nothing to help improve Liam's mood.

We have friends whose child has a critical illness, and for the past couple of years the hospital has been like a second home to them. I thought I was as sympathetic to their plight as I could be, but yesterday really drove it home to me even more how awful their situation is. The hours of waiting, the pain and uncertainty Liam faced, the scary X-ray machine, not to mention the blood tests - oh, man. He was a little trooper, but it was awful to put him through. And that was just one day, and just a few simple tests, and in the end the Rx we received was to go home, dose him with Motrin and wait a couple days for it to clear. He is much better today already, though he's still a bit gimpy so I am home with the kiddos for another day until he is really ready to face the world again.

I asked the doctor how common this is, because I had never even heard of it before, and he said that the last case he had seen was eight or nine months ago... and then Liam was the second kid he saw with it just yesterday. Maybe the strain of the flu that's making the rounds right now is particularly prone to lingering around; who knows. We're on the mend, anyway, and it could have been a lot worse. I'm very thankful to see Liam galloping around the house today, even if it is with a bit of a limp left in his step.