Stress Fracture

Rachel started complaining of some ankle pain around the 1st week of September. She complained a little, but after her 1st soccer game on the 10th she was in tears because of the pain. The following Monday, I tried to get her an appt. at Knoxville Orthopaedic Clinic (KOC), but they didn't have any openings that day, so I took her to the after hours clinic there. The physician's assistant had it x-rayed and seemed a little puzzled by the x-ray. He indicated there was an anomaly on her ankle bone and wanted her to stay off of it for 2-3 weeks and then see one of the doctors at KOC. After Robert & I discussed this more, we decided we didn't like the word "anomaly" so we scheduled an appt. with Dr. Crawford, who is the pediatric orthopaedic doctor at KOC who did both of Katelyn's knee surgeries. We saw him on the 16th. He too was a little puzzled by the x-ray. He said the x-ray looked like Rachel's ankle had been broken/fractured 4-6 weeks ago and that there was actually new bone growth there trying to heal itself. But since we could not remember any type of injury she might have had, Dr. Crawford wanted to get an MRI on her ankle just to get a better look. Rachel had the MRI on Thursday (22nd). We went back to see Dr. Crawford yesterday to get the MRI results. Official diagnosis is a stress fracture of her medial malleolus, which is the small ankle bone on the inside of her foot. The good news is it's not a weight bearing bone, so he didn't see any reason to put her in a cast or boot. It does appear to be trying to heal itself. However, he wants Rachel to limit activities where she is cutting/moving side to side. So soccer is out for three weeks! Rachel is pretty bummed about that. However, the funny part of the doctor's orders is that he said she could swim, but she doesn't need to do breast stroke because of the kick. Rachel hates the breast stroke, so she is more than willing to comply with this part of the doctor's orders!!! Hopefully, after 3 weeks she will no longer have any pain and can get back to her normal activities. However, if she is having any kind of pain at all, we have to take her back to the doctor.