The first few days that we were home from the hospital Ellie seemed to be doing just fine, except that her knee was still really swollen. We were keeping her on ibuprofen around the clock and really wasn't helping at all with the swelling. Then on Monday she had a little fever and the swelling got even worse. Her whole thigh clear up to her hip joint was swollen now too. One of our friends came over and helped Steve give her a blessing, and we called the Orthopedic clinic to see what they thought we should do. We had a follow up appointment with the orthopedist for Thursday, but I was pretty worried about her. We asked if they could see us sooner, but they said they didn't have any appointments until Thursday. And since her fever was barely over 100 (I think it was like 100.2) they didn't seem too concerned about her. The nurse suggested taking her back to the ER if we really wanted her looked at that day. Because she really wasn't acting sick and didn't seem to be in pain at all, we decided to pass on the 8 hour ER visit and wait it out until Thursday.
After sitting in the waiting room for 2 hours, the nurse finally called us back to a room only to have to wait another hour before the Orthopedic surgeon finally came in to see us. Oh the joys of the doctor's office.
So when the surgeon finally came in (this was the same doctor who had seen her while we were at the hospital the week before) he took one look at Ellie's extremely swollen leg, and got a really concerned look on his face. He just looked at me and said, "This definitely isn't a viral thing.". He sent us back to the ER, luckily I made the nurse call ahead and let them know that we were coming so we wouldn't have to wait for 3-4 hours in the waiting room again before being seen, and ordered more x-rays and blood work. The x-ray showed swelling in her knee joint and a bright spot in the bone just below her knee joint that hadn't been there the week before, and her blood work was pretty elevated. This meant that they would need to aspirate her knee joint AGAIN and culture the fluid. Steve was at school during this extremely long day, but luckily my wonderful friend Lexi Nielson had volunteered to come to Ellie's appointment with me. At first I told her no because I didn't want her to have to waste her day at a doctor's appointment that I knew would take up the entire afternoon. But something told me I needed someone there with me, so I took her up on her offer. The Lord was definitely watching over me. Had I been there by myself, I would have lost it the minute the doctor said, "This definitely isn't a viral thing.". Anyways, Lexi's husband Dan came to pick her up at about 5:30pm, and luckily Steve was done with patients a little early and showed up like only 10 minutes after Lexi left.
So they aspirated her knee and this time the culture came back positive. The white blood cells in her culture were really elevated which meant there was definitely some kind of infection in her knee. The surgeon came in and told us that they wanted to get her in to surgery right away to clean the infection out of her knee joint. I was obviously a little nervous about my almost 2 year old having to have surgery, but I was happy that we were finally figuring this whole thing out and that hopefully that would mean Ellie's leg would finally start getting better.
Ellie was such a trooper through this whole thing. She was happy and coloring, and walking around the ER trying to unlock cupboards with my keys. The surgeon who did her first surgery just kept saying how he couldn't believe she was this happy and not acting like she was in pain at all! Dan and Lexi had come back to the ER to bring us some dinner (seriously they are the most amazing friends ever!) and so Dan was able to help Steve give Ellie a blessing right before they took her back for surgery.
She was all kinds of excited to ride in that big crib. She kept saying, "Wow this so amazin!" haha
Her sad little leg in that big splint:(
These picture break my heart.
They had to intubate her during surgery, so when she started to wake up she was sobbing and coughing and we could tell that her throat hurt really bad.
We were finally able to get her calmed down and moved upstairs from recovery to a hospital room.
Trying to get her to eat something. She didn't really eat the whole time we were in the hospital.
Emily, Milo, and Clara came to see us on Friday and brought Ellie a bag full of treats and stuff to play with. Seriously our friends from our ward were so wonderful to us the whole time we were in the hospital. We had visitors daily, and more food than we could eat. I had so many people offer to bring us food that I had to start telling them no. The Lord was watching over us the whole time and I'm just so grateful to have such kind and caring friends.
Emily Albrecht and Liz sent Ellie a birthday/get well gift and I of course just started crying as soon as the lady dropped it off at our room. I'm pretty sure I cried almost non-stop while we were in the hospital. I was either upset and worried about Ellie, or I was just overcome with gratitude from all of the tender mercies from the Lord. Either way, there was lots of tears. This was definitely the hardest thing we've had to go through as parents so far.
Since we couldn't give Ellie a bath, we had to wipe her down with baby wipes every day and then we decided to try washing her hair with this dumb shampoo cap the nurse gave us. Ellie hated it. And we hated it even more because it pretty much just made her hair greasy and stinky.
It may look like we slept a lot, but we were all pretty exhausted the whole time. It's ironic that you're supposed to rest while you're sick in the hospital, because we all know sleep just doesn't happen while you're staying in the hospital. Poor Ellie would wake up about every 2 hours between the nurses coming in to do vitals, give her IV antibiotics, and pain meds. Which of course meant Steve and I were up the whole night too.
Those dang lab ladies. They woke her up to draw her blood at 4:30am like every morning!
That poor knee:(
The first surgery was done on Thursday night. On Friday morning when the Orthopedic team came in to check on Ellie, they told us that there was a chance they'd have to take her back to surgery a second time depending on how her blood work looked over the next couple of days. So Sunday morning, April 26th which just so happens to be Ellie's birthday, they drew her blood and her labs came back still elevated. So off she went to surgery for the second time. Steve and I both lost it at this point. We just felt so terrible and so helpless. We didn't want her to have to spend her second birthday having surgery again. Steve had gone to get her some birthday presents the night before, and we decided to give them to her before they took her back for surgery.
She was obsessed with her new baby doll!
Off she goes to surgery again.
It was a rough day. Ellie slept most of the day after she got out of surgery. She finally perked up a little bit that evening, so we gave her a couple more presents and a Minnie Mouse birthday cake which she loved of course!
The second surgery did the trick and over the next couple of days she just got better and better.
Painting her toenails.
Watching frozen for the millionth time.
Thank goodness for popsicles and rides in the red wagon!
Poor Steve trying to get some studying in. I'm so grateful that he was able to be at the hospital with us the whole time. The doctors at the school were so understanding and told him not to worry about coming in.
They finally discharged Ellie on Wednesday so we'd almost been there for an entire week! We were so ready to go home and sleep in our own beds. Ellie had to be on 2 different antibiotics for 3 weeks. She hated them while we were in the hospital, but once we got home and she didn't have nurses and doctors poking and prodding at her constantly, she took them like a champ. We're so happy to have our girl home and healthy again!
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