The Stingray Saga

We went to southern California for Thanksgiving with Sean's family. The kids really wanted to go to the beach so when we got there Monday afternoon, we headed straight to Seal Beach. We were all in our swimsuits, running in the waves (the only ones in the water without wetsuits... crazy Utahns) and having a great time. I was holding Ava's hand (I can NEVER relax at the beach with my kids, something about the vastness of the ocean and the smallness of my children just doesn't sit right with me) and she was laughing and jumping up and down when she started screaming and saying something really hurt her foot. I pulled her out of the water and there was dark, dark red, almost black, blood spurting from her foot. Sean and I ran her to the towels and laid her down and we were trying to wipe the blood away so we could see where it was coming from but it was still coming so fast that we couldn't see anything but blood. Sean put pressure on it for about 5 minutes and when he pulled the towel away there was just a big hole on the inside of her foot just below her ankle bone that quickly filled up with blood. We could not figure out what would have caused it. Ava was in a lot of pain and was shaking really bad. We got her in the car and the whole way back to the hotel she would start screaming again and saying it really hurt again. By the time we got her back, it had started swelling. I called the doctor on call at her pediatrician's office and he said to give her Benadryl and ibuprofen. He also thought that she was pierced by a sea urchin spine. Sean and I could not figure out what had done that to her, I kept telling Sean that it looked like a huge gaged needle was shot into her foot. So the sea urchin spine made a little sense but we couldn't figure out how it got the momentum to go that far into her foot to hit a vein. And then if it got the momentum to go in, you would think it would still be in there when I lifted her out of the water because what would give it the momentum to come out again? We were still a little confused but that was the best explanation we had at the time. So she woke up the next morning and she was fine! All the swelling had gone down and you could only see the pierce mark and she could walk on it just fine. She was fine the rest of the week and walked all over Disneyland and Legoland for the next 4 days.

We got home Saturday night and then on Tuesday night (8 days after the incident), when I was putting her to bed she said that the sheets were hurting her foot. I looked at it and it had started to get red and swollen again but not too bad. I put her to bed and then looked at it the next morning... it was now very red and swollen and the swollen area had spread and there was a purple ring around the pierce mark. I made an appointment with her doctor (who was out of the country) so I saw another doctor in the office and I was just expecting her to take one look at it and hand me a prescription for antibiotics. She took a look at it and then said she needed to make some phone calls. She kept coming in and out of the room, and she would look at her foot, say things like, "hmmmm" or one time, "the plot thickens", and then leave the room again. Not things a mom wants to hear. She came back in the room and said, "You need to go to Primary Children's ER right now. I've called them and they are expecting you. She needs to have an MRI and needs to be sedated for it." Great! I called Sean and he hurried home from work so we could go up together. Ava was so cute that day, saying the cutest things and when we got there, she happily skipped up to the ER entrance... a little ironic. We got settled into our room and the doctors told us they were worried about a few things... that a portion of whatever got her was still in her foot, that she had an infection in her joint or an abscess. All not good things. They decided that an MRI wasn't the test she needed but that she needed an x-ray and an ultrasound. So for the next several hours, we waited in our little room for someone to come and get us for the test, then went back to our room and waited for the doctor to come in and tell us the results. When we were getting the ultrasound done, we were behind the curtain and Ava was saying the cutest, funniest things and I could hear people laughing on the other side of the curtain. When she was done, the ultrasound tech pulled back the curtain and there were three hospital employees standing there to get a look at the funny four year old. When the tech was walking us back to our room, Ava commented on the Christmas decorations. The tech told her that they were all ready for Christmas at the hospital to which Ava happily and loudly declared, "Christmas is the season of giving!!" All the tests said that there was nothing foreign in her foot and that the infection was not in the joint... good news! But, the nurse practitioner came in and said that she had been researching it while we were there and didn't think it was a sea urchin spine but a stingray! It made much more sense to us, we didn't think there was any way that the waves could give a sea urchin spine that much momentum to go that deep into her foot and make that big of a hole. I looked at the symptoms of a stingray sting and they said that the pain comes and goes in waves for the first several hours and that totally jives with Ava screaming in waves for the first several hours. Well, after many hours, I FINALLY got my prescription for antibiotics and we were out of there.

Poor Ava! I was holding her hand right when it happened and I wish it would have gotten me instead. I told Sean that it made me angry that something attacked our baby. He just laughed and made fun of me and said, "What, you're mad that we were in an animal's natural habitat and it was protecting itself?" He has a point, but still... I gave her her first dose of antibiotics that night and by the next morning everything looked much better and she has continued to improve since. So remember, the next time you are in the ocean, SHUFFLE your feet! (The blue ring around the outside of the swelling in the picture is actually pen. Her doctor drew a circle around the swelling so they could see if the swelling had gotten bigger by the time we got to the hospital. This was after one dose of antibiotics and actually looks much better!)