Friday (March 7th) Brett got home from school and
just wasn’t acting normal and laid around all evening. I finally went looking
for the thermometer and his temp was somewhere around 100.. Over the weekend he
ran a fever ranging from 99-101 but every time I gave him Motrin his fever
would come down to normal. Sunday night he was running a fever and Brynna also
started running a fever so I decided to keep him home from school and the next
morning was able to get him and Brynna into the doctors(on post) that
afternoon. By the time we got to the doctors Brett’s temp was back to normal
and he was also back to normal. The doctor looked him over and said everything
looked fine and he didn’t need to be strep tested. Brynna they did a strep test
to because her tonsils looked a little swollen. He told me he would call me if
she tested positive for strep. We got home and since Brett was cleared by the doctors
I let him go outside to play with his friends while I started cooking dinner.
Adam was on 24 hour duty (started at 9am Monday morning), he was coming home
for dinner that evening for about an hour and would go back to work until 9am
Tuesday morning. I called Brett in to do a few things before dinner. We had
dinner, Adam went back to work, and then it was bedtime at 7:30. Friday night
sometime between 10:30-11:30 Brett woke up screaming. This was a scream I have
NEVER heard before. I couldn’t completely understand what he said but as I run
in his room he is in the fetal position. I assume it’s his stomach because Adam
was throwing up at work all evening. I grabbed his right ankle to pull his legs
down so I can help him sit up and talk to him and he SCREAMS even louder.. That’s
when he screamed my “MY LEG HURTS!!!!” Since Adam was gone I carried Brett and
put him in bed with me so I could keep an eye on him. I don’t think he was
running a fever yet but I can’t remember for sure. I asked him how he hurt his
foot and he told me that he was playing at the park and fell off the slide. I
decided if he was still in pain the next morning I would take him to the ER.
The next morning Adam got home and stayed with Brynna and
Aliana while I took Brett to the Womack ER (on post). We get to the ER and they
checked his temp, it was 99.5. They take him back to have an x-ray and put us
in a room. They didn’t see any fractures or breaks so the doctor said it was a
bad sprain. They wrapped it and he screamed and cried the whole time because of
how badly it hurt. At this time it was only a little swollen.. Nothing too
crazy so I thought okay it is just sprained we’ll have to loosen it up some and
hopefully he can put some pressure on it to go back to school tomorrow
(Wednesday). We kept it elevated and iced it and he did some limping/walking.
So I THOUGHT it was getting better. Tuesday night Brett again is in EXCRUCIATNG
PAIN!! Screaming and crying again. His fever is back up to 103 and he is not
sleeping. I tried giving him Motrin and it only went down to 101. NORMALLY
whenever I give him Motrin it goes down to normal but this time it didn’t. I also tried giving him Melatonin to help him
sleep. It didn’t work. I was planning on calling his doctors the next morning
and seeing if he could get in but we didn’t even make it to midnight. I really
wanted to get a little bit of sleep because I was so exhausted and I didn’t know
if I should even chance driving. BUT by 11pm I knew that either way I was
getting no sleep and his pain wasn’t getting any better. So off to the ER we
go…. AGAIN! For the second time in one day. This time we ended up going off
post instead of on post and saw a civilian doctor instead of a military doctor.
We get there and he is crying because of how much pain he’s in. Since it’s out
first time they had to get some info but other than that they got us right in.
He was running a 102 fever so they wanted to test him for strep and flu. They
did X-Rays on his foot and gave him Tylenol with Codeine to help with the pain.
The doctor said he was pretty sure it was broken because of how swollen it was
and with how much pain he was in. His strep test ended up coming back positive
and his X-rays came back normal. So they prescribed him amoxicillin for his
strep and Tylenol and Motrin for his fever. The doctor also said it was
probably just a bad sprain. Then sent us home. Thanks to the Tylenol with
Codeine he slept a total of 3 hours without waking up in pain but once it wore
off he was back up crying in pain..
Wednesday (March 12th) he was back in pain and
lots of it. Fever was up in the 104’s and Motrin wasn’t bringing it down much.
Even with Motrin it stayed around 102. I had plans on going to get his
amoxicillin filled but once I looked at the prescriptions they gave me I
realized the ONLY one missing was the amoxicillin!! That afternoon some redness
around his ankle bone started to show up. My aunt ended up telling me we should
take him back to the ER and have blood work done to check for an infection. Less
than 5 minutes later my mom calls and also said that I should probably have his
leg checked for an infection. Adam got off work that evening and we took Brynna
and Aliana to Kelly’s house and we took Brett back to the ER for the 3rd
time!! I explained everything and again he was screaming and crying and in TONS
of pain so they got us right back. Whenever the doctor came in I explained that
this was now our 3rd ER visit and he was getting worse, his fever
was getting higher and higher, and that I wanted blood work done to check for
an infection since all the x-rays were not showing anything. The doctor didn’t
want to do the blood work. He said he would take a look over the X-ray again to
see if he could spot something that the other doctor missed. He came back in
and said that he didn’t see anything but that he wanted to put a splint on
Brett’s foot and that we could follow up in 10 days and get another x-ray to
see if it was actually fractured but just a tiny fracture that wasn’t able to
be seen on an x-ray. So pretty much he was sending us home without blood work!
UMMM… NO I WANT BLOOD WORK! He believed that it was fractured while I believed
it was not. I told the nurse I did not want to sign the discharge papers until
the doctor came back in and would do blood work. The doctor ended up coming in
and explaining that he is a doctor and went to school for this. He sees breaks,
sprains, and fractures every day so he knows what it looks like. But that we
don’t see them all the time so that’s why we don’t think it’s fractured. He
told us it was unnecessary to do blood work and with him having strep it would
give us no answers because his white blood count would be somewhat elevated
anyways. The doctor said but if yall still want blood work then I will do it.
Adam ended up telling him DO THE BLOOD WORK! He did the blood work and came
back with a totally different attitude. His white blood count was at 22% and
normal is low to mid-teens.. Yes strep would elevate his white blood count but
there was something else causing it to be so high. He ended up recommending
giving Brett a bicillin shot for the strep and then prescribing another
antibiotic for the infection AND he was also going to prescribe him Tylenol
with codeine. THANK GOD! BUT he was still putting a splint on his foot because
he still believed there was no infection and that it was just fractured. They
told us if the rest of his blood work came back and showed anything not normal
they would call us.
Thursday morning Adam went to work like normal and I called
to schedule Brett a doctor’s appointment for his foot to try and get a referral
for an off post doctor. They weren’t able to get him an appointment until the
24th! I wanted a same day appointment but they weren’t able to get
me one. So I decided to not schedule one and whenever we went to his physical
the next morning I would explain everything to them and see what they would do
for Brett. All morning I was going crazy wishing I could see his ankle just to
see if the redness was worse. I took his temp and it was 105!! I gave him
motrin and decided I would take a shower (I REALLY NEEDED to take a shower) and
then after that I’d take the splint off if it was worse I’d take him to a children’s
hospital but if it looked the same or better I’d wait until tomorrow to see the
on post doctor. I don’t go to church often but I do pray and I do talk to God.
Normally at night before bed but some times during the day. So while I’m in the
shower I decided to have a talk with God. I asked him to please give me a sign.
If I needed to take him back to the hospital then his ankle REALLY needed to be
red and worse than the night before. It couldn’t just be a tiny bit difference.
I REALLY needed to be able to notice a difference. So I get out of the shower
and start to take his splint off. Brett is crying and screaming and I am
praying/talking to God. I get the brace off and there was no doubt about it.
Brett NEEDED to get to the hospital ASAP! I take a picture and send it to my
mom and aunt. I am soaking wet from just taking a shower. I throw my hair up
and then grab some clothes while I’m calling Adam telling him he needs to get
home ASAP and that Brett’s ankle was bad. At that moment everything went from
bad to horrible! My phone is ringing back to back to back. Brett is screaming
in pain because he has to pee but his foot hurts to bad to move so I’m carrying
him, Brynna is throwing water all over the bathroom, while Aliana is screaming
in her crib. I finally answer my phone and it’s the ER nurse from Cape Fear(the
hospital we were at the night before) explaining that Brett’s blood work just
came back and she just talked to my husband but since Brett was still running
such a high fever we needed to bring him back in. I had plans on Adam staying
here with Brynna and Aliana but Kelly (the best person ever!!) told Adam to
pack a bag for the girls and drop them off with her so that he could go with
me. Thankfully she did because he really needed to be there. Once we got to the
ER things went quick. We had all these doctors coming in and out. They got an
IV put in right away and were telling us best case and worse case scenarios. There
was a chance we could only be in the hospital for a day or two OR we could be
in the hospital for a couple weeks to a couple months. It really just depended
on more blood work, MRI’s, and how severe Brett’s infection was. The ER doctors
thought it was cellulitis but the doctor from the ped’s floor came in and he
thought it was an infection in the bone or joint and he wanted to do an MRI.
The MRI was booked until the next morning but he was able to get us in right
then. I wasn’t able to go in but thankfully Adam could. The nurses said he did
better than a lot of adults normally do. After the MRI they sent us up to ped’s
and got him started on 3 different IV antibiotics. By the time the results were
in the doctors had all left so we were told we wouldn’t know anything until the
next morning. I knew I would be getting NO sleep that night thinking about all the
“what if’s”. Well that evening a nurse came in to fix Brett’s IV and she told
me the pediatrician called. She said the pediatrician wanted to have her update
Adam and I and that he thought it was septic arthritis but he wanted an
orthopedic doctor to review the MRI and see what he thought…. What in the world
is septic arthritis?? All I wanted to know right then was is it a skin, bone,
or joint infection? She said “unfortunately it’s joint.” My heart sank. I was there all by myself (Adam had to run
home really quick to let the dogs out before bedtime) and just wanted to bawl
my eyes out. I fought off the tears because I didn’t want to scare Brett any
more than he already was. As soon as the nurse left I called Adam and let him
know and then my mom. My mom ended up booking my grandma on a flight the next
morning so she could come help with Brynna and Aliana while Adam and I focused
on Brett. I tried my best to stay away from google because I knew it would do
more harm than good for me to read what google said.
Friday (March 14th) morning around 7:30 I decided
I’d run home and let the dogs out because I had very little clean clothes left
and I wanted to put on a load of laundry while I was there. I asked before I
left when the doctors normally come and she said about 10am. So I knew I had
time but to be quick. Well 10 minutes after I left the doctors showed up. I
knew that would happen but if I would have stayed they would have come around
10. Isn’t that how it works haha. They confirmed that he did have septic
arthritis and now they needed to do surgery. They also needed to do an echo on
his heart to see if the infection had traveled to his heart. That whole week I
held it together and didn’t cry once. I have no idea how I kept it together for
so long but whenever Adam told me that the infection could be in his heart I
hung up the phone and bawled my eyes out. I was so angry and upset at all the
doctors that failed us and again I was praying to God that his heart was perfectly
fine and no infection was in there. I rushed back to the hospital once I got
that news. Thankfully though the echo came back perfect and no infection was in
his heart!! My Gigi’s flight landed at 1:50pm and the surgeon was coming to
speak with us at 2pm so Adam went to pick Gigi up while I waited to speak with
the surgeon. He ended up bringing Gigi back to the hospital so she could see
Brett really quick before she went to our house. Well a little bit after they
got to the hospital the surgeon walks in and tells us that he is going to cut Brett’s
foot open and clean out as much of the infection as he can. The infection was
pretty much in the whole foot, wrapped around his ankle, and traveling up his
foot. He only wanted to cut the top of the foot open though because he didn’t
want to chance damaging anything in his ankle so he would clean out as much as
he could and then after that he would continue his IV antibiotics to kill off
the rest of the infection. Once we talked to the surgeon I was about to leave
and run Gigi to the grocery store to pick up and few things and then come back
in time for surgery. Thankfully I let the nurses know because they told me they
were taking Brett down to surgery in the next few minutes!! All she had to do
was print out some paper work for us to sign and then he’d be off. So again we
waited. They take him down to pre op and he knocks out. We were in pre op for
about an hour waiting. I was so ready for them to just take him back and be
done because I was starting to really freak out on the inside. We asked the anesthesiologist
to move his IV while he’s in surgery because the IV that he had was starting to
mess up and I’d rather have them put it in while he’s knocked out instead of
them having to do it after surgery. He was given Morphine to help with the pain
after surgery and only got it that one time. He was in more pain before the
surgery and very little pain after the surgery. That night we both slept GREAT!
It was our first night of pretty good sleep since Monday.
Saturday morning he had to get blood work done to check his
white blood count and his infection level. I’m guessing that hospital goes off
a percentage instead of actual white blood cell count because his white blood
cell count was 22% on Wednesday night and Saturdays blood work it was down to
18.4% his CRP was 210 on Wednesday night, Thursday when we were admitted they
drew blood and it was up to 270, by Saturday it was down to 190. The doctor
came in that afternoon and removed the drain. His foot was already looking so
much better!! It still had the redness and swelling but you could tell a huge
difference from the day before. They told us each time before they change the
dressing that they would give him morphine because it would probably be really
tender to touch. So for the first 2-3 dressing changes they gave him morphine.
I ended up asking to stop the morphine because it made him so agitated and
angry. So they switched him to Tylenol with codeine and then ended up
completely taking him off pain meds because he really didn’t need them.
Sunday things really started looking up and it looked like
he’d be getting released by midweek! He was so excited! He was so tired of
being there and hated all the things attached to him! He ended up pulling his
IV out on accident and they were hoping he wouldn’t have to get another one BUT
they had to continue giving him his antibiotics through his IV so he had to get
his 4th IV(he got one Wednesday in the ER, Thursday in the ER,
Friday during surgery, and then again on Sunday)! He again was NOT happy about
that. Every IV or blood work they had to do it was like holding down the hulk!
He fought with all his might until they were done. COMPLETELY DONE! Sunday
night he started running a low grade fever of about 100.5. They gave him some
motrin and it went away. Sunday night Brynna also started running a little
fever so I knew Monday morning I’d have to call and get her an appointment to
be strep tested again. Since Brett ended up testing positive on Tuesday I wanted
to get Brynna tested again.
Monday went great and they told us that he would probably be
released on Tuesday afternoon! We were SO excited! Monday morning I had an OB
appointment for myself and then a doctor’s appointment for Brynna. We get to Brynna’s
appointment and she lost 1 ½ pounds in a WEEK!! The doctor (not the same doctor
we saw last Monday) walks in and says why do you want her strep tested again
when she had a positive strep test last week? I said “Well thank you for
letting me know because the doctor who strep tested her last week told me that
if her strep test came back positive that he’d call me and he never did.” This
doctor was furious at the other doctor because she has now had strep for at
LEAST a week that we could have already been treating but instead the idiotic
doctor let it slide. Use to you could call a number and input your information
and it would tell you if your test came back positive or negative and I asked
about doing that but he said no he would call me. Apparently he forgot that little
detail -__- so NOW I have a child who is in the hospital because he was never
strep tested because he showed no symptoms and the doctor didn’t want to strep
test him. IF Brett would have been strep tested I would have NEVER let him go
outside to play and chance getting another child sick. So he more than likely
would have never fell and got septic arthritis. BUT who knows he still could
have fell down the stairs or fell getting out of bed. You never know. AND on
top of that I have another child whose tonsils and lymph nodes were so swollen
because of a negligent doctor ignoring her strep results. AND she also ended up
getting strep induce impetigo because of the strep going untreated for so long!
Monday night Brett’s splint was removed and they wanted to try out just a wrap
with the dressing. Brett didn’t like that his ankle was able to move now
because it was still extremely tender. The splint was hard and he couldn’t move
his ankle bone but with the wrap it was able to move.
Tuesday morning the pediatrician came in and said as long as
Brett’s blood work from that morning came back better than the previous blood
work we would be going home! He didn’t expect it to be perfect because he did
still have an infection but if the blood work results were worse than the
previous one that was not a good sign so he’d have to stay. The blood work came
back and we were released!! He would still have lots of follow up appointments
and would not be able to go back to school right away. He also has to start
physical therapy to help gain strength back in his joint and to help him learn
not to favor his right foot. They told us it was up to him when he was ready to
put weight on his foot he could. Brynna was SO excited to see her bubba when he
got home! The hospital we were at was on lock down due to flu season and was
not allowing any children in under the age of 12. So she didn’t see him the
whole time he was admitted plus before that he was in so much pain she wasn’t
able to really play with him.
Wednesday morning Brett had to go to an appointment at our
military clinic and I had to explain everything to them. Sadly the nurse
already knew most of Brett and Brynna’s situation and it was apparently the
talk of the clinic. In less than 2 weeks Brett lost 3 ½ pounds. He started to
try and put weight on his foot but it was still REALLY sore so he stuck to
using his “crunches”. That evening it was time to send Gigi back home. With
everything that has been going on we decided it’d be best if Gigi took Aliana
back to Texas. I felt bad but for our family it was the best option. We needed
to focus on Brett and Brynna’s health.
Today Brett had his follow up appointment with his Orthopedic
(the one who did his surgery) and he took Brett’s stitches out. Brett had one
stitch on both sides of the open wound and the rest of the wound had to heal from
the inside out. It is still healing but it looks great! His ankle is still
swollen but wow it just looks SO much better compared to one week ago. I asked
the doctor when he thinks Brett will be able to go back to school and he said
he doesn’t want to send him back right now because of him being so young. The
kids won’t know to watch out for his foot. Brett won’t know to protect his foot
and he doesn’t want to chance it getting worse instead of better. So he is out of
school for another 2-3 weeks, the school will be having a home bound teacher
come to work with Brett while he is out of school because even though for now
the doctor is saying 2-3 weeks right now. We could go back to his next
appointment and he could say that Brett needs to stay out of school for another
week or two. But hopefully he will be able to go back soon because he really
misses school and playing with his friends.
Also something I want to let y'all know is Brett got septic arthritis from strep throat. It is NOT common. Not everyone who gets strep is going to end up in the hospital like he did. It was a complete freak accident. But hopefully my facebook posts and this blog post will help educate people about it. It was a very quick. If we would not have started antibiotics when we did I could not imagine how much worse things would have been.. I am so extremely thankful for my aunt and mom pushing me to MAKE the doctor do blood work on Brett because if they wouldn't have done blood work we would not have caught the infection in time. Brett injured himself while the strep infection was floating around his body and his body could not fight off the infection so it got bad and it got bad quick!
Also something I want to let y'all know is Brett got septic arthritis from strep throat. It is NOT common. Not everyone who gets strep is going to end up in the hospital like he did. It was a complete freak accident. But hopefully my facebook posts and this blog post will help educate people about it. It was a very quick. If we would not have started antibiotics when we did I could not imagine how much worse things would have been.. I am so extremely thankful for my aunt and mom pushing me to MAKE the doctor do blood work on Brett because if they wouldn't have done blood work we would not have caught the infection in time. Brett injured himself while the strep infection was floating around his body and his body could not fight off the infection so it got bad and it got bad quick!
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