Big words, that was my first thought.  Then I thought about what transient meant.  My limited knowledge of the word makes me think of a person down on their luck, Aladdin popped into my mind.  Transient also means temporary, short-term, brief, etc.  So you’re probably wondering why I’ve transitioned from fatherhood stories to dictionary.

This past Friday, July 27th, Layton woke up as usual around 4 am screaming for momma and daddy (usual for the past two weeks anyway, he’s normally an awesome sleeper).  He climbed out of bed and walked to the door and opened it.  I was at his room by this point.  He was consoled, we read a few books, he screamed every time we put him back into his bed, and he was finally back asleep 45 minutes later.

I woke him up for daycare around 7:30 and he was angelically pleasant, clearly he forgot about the 4 am wake up call.  I got him ready and asked him to stand up to pull his shorts up and his left leg immediately collapsed.  My initial reaction was to try again, so we did and he collapsed again.  He never cried, just said it hurt.  So I went through the process of feeling his leg asking him to tell me where it hurt, from the hip down to his toes, nothing.

(Sidebar: Externally, calm dad, let’s work through all the steps to rule things out.  Internally I was freaking out.  My child can’t stand up, his leg is collapsing under him, what if he never walks again, AHHHH, THE WORLD IS ENDING!!!!)

Everything was fine.  So I wiggled his toes, moved his foot, bent his knee, nothing.  So I carried him to the kitchen and got some food for him.  Asked him to stand, he did for a short period holding onto something then his left leg gave out again.  Ok, something is clearly wrong here.  I called my wife, who was at work by this point, about a dozen times.  She gets us in at the doctor at 10 that morning, excellent.  He’s happily moving around his train table holding on using it as a stabilizer.  The kid is in great spirits given he can’t really walk.  He goes to what I’ll call his “pooping corner” and squats down without issue, sitting there not holding onto anything, then stands back up using the train table for assistance.  I’m baffled.  He was able to squat no problem, bent his knee, ankle, hip, filled his diaper, but can’t walk or stand up without assistance.  He’s sitting cross legged no issues.  I’m at a loss.  From everything I understand he should have been fine.  I started thinking about what he did the night before, did he get injured during his 4 am tantrum?  My mom watched him the evening before, did something happen there?  Nothing came to mind.

By the time we got to the doctor he’s able to limp a good 10 feet before going down, must be loosening up as the day goes on.  So the doctor does the full range of motion testing, nothing surprising there.  No wincing, crying, ouches, he’s fine.  But not really.  He still can’t walk.  Ask him to push his foot onto your hand, no big deal.  Then doc throws out the big words, “it’s likely Transient Synovitis”.  Huh?  It’s fairly common in children 3-8 years of age, particularly boys.  It’s the temporary inflammation of the hip joint or in some cases the knee.  The cause is unknown but usually follows a viral infection.  Layton hasn’t been sick (at least not that we’ve known of) for the entire summer.  So I’m still baffled.  Doc said he’s seen it last up to 6 weeks, but it usually clears up in 1-3 weeks.  Now, it’s 2 days later and we’re in pretty good shape.  Layton isn’t running yet but is walking close to without a limp.  Hopefully this progress continues and we have our independent, spirited little boy back in no time.

My initial feeling about this situation was to say suck it up and deal with it, the dad mentality you could say.  Several weeks ago we had a little incident in his inflatable pool where the dog bumped into Layton while Layton was climbing in and he rolled over his wrist.  He cried for a while, wouldn’t let anyone touch or move it; we thought it was broken.  So we got him out of his swimsuit, dried off, and into normal clothes and hopped in the truck.  The emergency room was the destination, but we ended up at my mom’s house.  On the way he started asking for the numerous rubber ducks that occupy a few cup holders in my truck.  As he’s accumulating them he transfers them to the “injured” hand/wrist.  The next thing you know he has full range of motion in his wrist like nothing was ever wrong.  We got to grandma’s and he goes right to the toy box and that was the end of the “injured” wrist.  So I was a bit jaded when the knee “injury” came up.  I’m glad I didn’t just push the issue and send him to daycare.  My gut said “call your wife and talk it through”.  In this situation, I’m glad I trusted my alimentary canal.