Blackie6
Proud Parent
I'm apologising now if this gets too long...I am one big ball of emotions right now over DD's foot. For anyone out there that has lived thru a gymie with an injury, bless you, because I never realized how hard it was. I already posted about taking DD to my work (Urgent Care Center) where they x-rayed her (remember this for later) and told me they suspected hairline fracture. This was on New Year's Eve. A couple days later I was able to get her into a Ped Ortho who suspected the hairline was not in the growth plate as first suspected, but a little higher and showed me a line on the x-ray itself. They put her in a walking brace and told her stay out of the gym for two weeks. Our meet was starting the day of this appointment and I had to work the Friday night session and 2 sessions on Sat. DD came with me and had a blast with all the team girls who treated her like she was the princess. However, you can take the girl out of the gym, but can take the gym out of the girl. She ran all over that hotel, never sitting still for a second. The doc did say she would do no damage with the brace, but still I spent most of the time yelling at her to take it easy or she would end up in a full body cast up to her nose! Coaches brother (a tramp champ who coaches girls on the tramp) even told her about how his foot needed to be pinned and it still didn't scare her enough to stop bouncing around. Braces should also come with sedatives for gymmies! She wanted Shawn to sign her brace but since it was black I had nothing that would write on it & no time to run home and back. Meanwhile this is our gym's meet and daughter has been a part of this planning process since last year as it was also a fund raiser for the Susan G Komen foundation (we raised, contributed $11,000) and wanted to compete so badly. We even had special black/pink leo's with the logo to wear. DD did not want to sit with the team and watch, she wanted to compete! Here's the hard part..... being the mom. I told her NO. I told her her foot was and should be more improtant than any meet. Medals, meets will come and go but you need the foot for life long after you're out of the gym. She seemed OK at first with not competing our meet and States. Then, late on Friday my usually immature daughter argued her case on why she should compete. It made me cry, and I am crying now as I type this because I HATED myself for even entertaining the thought she compete on the foot. I told her very seriously that it is OK to just sit with the team and she should feel no pressure from anyone to participate and that nobody expected her and nobody would be mad at her because she was hurt. I thought if I told her that then she wouldn't feel like she was letting me/dad down or her team/coach. I also told her she goes to L5 no matter what, it didn't depend on a meet or a score. Then she starts crying and says "but mommy, I worked sooo hard for this...I waited all year for this and I worked so hard on my beam". Then she pleaded to at least allow her to do bars. Anyone remember the movie "Animal House" with the little devil/angel on the shoulder making comments? I had NO SLEEP on Friday night or Sat night. I didn't know what to do. I have never in my whole life felt so horrible, conflicted and not knowing what to do. I didn't know what to do up until about 1 hr before the session started on Sunday. All weekend people gave me lots of advice, good and bad, sports doctors names, personal stories and that confused me even more. But, because it was our meet we had a lot of extra coaches there, staff, medical staff and trainer we decided to allow her to do bars. She is solid on that event, it's the one that makes her the most happy and the least amount of foot time. So, on Sunday she happily warmed up with the team, her foot had a gel cup taped on. Nothing that involved jumping, only stretches. When she warmed up bars she did not dismount, her coach caught her. She had extra mats and a sting mat under her. Coach was very close by and very protective like a mother hen. She had a little problem getting her foot over the bar for the shoot thru but did it. Not her best performance, but Olympic momment to me. I am not a nail biter but I did that day. I took no pictures because I thought I would throw up the whole time. When she came off they pulled all the tape off, iced her and she put her boot back on for protection. She got 7th place in her age group and was so happy...for the momment. On the way home she cried becaue she wanted to do everything and said I should let her. That's when I reminded her WHO the mom was, LOL
OK, rememeber I told you about the initial x-ray? At work yesterday they called downstairs to my office & said my DD's report was in. I didn't know they sent it out to a radiologist, usually our films are reviewed in the office by our doctors. I was excited because I was thinking to be reviewed by a Radiologist is 99% BETTER than a doc review...it showed No abnormalities and NO FRACTURE? So, I faxed it right off to the Ortho and will call later since I am off today. When I got home last night DD was running around without brace on. I still think there is something going on there and still want her in brace so for school and most of the day she will keep it on, but we will send her to gym practice tomorrow and coach says she can do some things not invoving her foot, no vault and no tumbling except maybe on tumble track. She insists foot does not hurt now. Trying to figure out still if she is lying to me. Not sure about states yet, because doing our meet they could make special provisions for her with the extra mats and coaches and whatever is going on we don't want cause more damage. We have until Sat to make the call. So, only one more week of no sleep and I still feel like throwing up.
If this was my foot there would be no argument for me to sit it out so it kills me that DD is so driven sometimes. I have three kids and have never felt like this. Over this past weekend I got lots of personal stories from competing gymnasts, names of some good sports doctors which we will go to next time an injury happens, and advice good and bad. But in the end it is us the parents making the decisions. What I thought was a simple answer was met with a challenge by my own dd who argued that this was her sport and she was the one who put the time in. UGH!
OK, rememeber I told you about the initial x-ray? At work yesterday they called downstairs to my office & said my DD's report was in. I didn't know they sent it out to a radiologist, usually our films are reviewed in the office by our doctors. I was excited because I was thinking to be reviewed by a Radiologist is 99% BETTER than a doc review...it showed No abnormalities and NO FRACTURE? So, I faxed it right off to the Ortho and will call later since I am off today. When I got home last night DD was running around without brace on. I still think there is something going on there and still want her in brace so for school and most of the day she will keep it on, but we will send her to gym practice tomorrow and coach says she can do some things not invoving her foot, no vault and no tumbling except maybe on tumble track. She insists foot does not hurt now. Trying to figure out still if she is lying to me. Not sure about states yet, because doing our meet they could make special provisions for her with the extra mats and coaches and whatever is going on we don't want cause more damage. We have until Sat to make the call. So, only one more week of no sleep and I still feel like throwing up.
If this was my foot there would be no argument for me to sit it out so it kills me that DD is so driven sometimes. I have three kids and have never felt like this. Over this past weekend I got lots of personal stories from competing gymnasts, names of some good sports doctors which we will go to next time an injury happens, and advice good and bad. But in the end it is us the parents making the decisions. What I thought was a simple answer was met with a challenge by my own dd who argued that this was her sport and she was the one who put the time in. UGH!