Infection from the Surgery

So I thought everything went well from Jacob's oral surgery on Monday but apparently he contracted an infection and has been at Mary Bridge Children's Hospital in Tacoma since Thursday. Here's an overview of what happened.

Wednesday morning Jacob woke up with a sore ankle and was having trouble walking on it. As the day progressed so did the pain in his ankle. He wasn't even walking on it all day and in the evening he came down with a fever and continued to complain about the pain (even while on Motrin). The next morning I called his dentist and asked them if the pain in his ankle could be a reaction to the oral surgery and she didn't seem to know so I called his doctor and was able to set up a same-day appointment for that afternoon. I barely got off the phone from making the appt. when Jacob was nearly bawling with pain so I packed up the kids and took him in to the urgent care clinic. After taking x-rays and examining him they didn't know what was causing it (it wasn't swollen or discolored) but they told me that they wanted me to go straight to the ER at the children's hospital in Tacoma. I was a little surprised and kind of doubted that we needed to go that far. I asked if we could just wait a couple days to see if it went away on its own and the doctor looked me in the eye and said, "If it was my little boy, I'd take him in right away." That was all I needed to hear.

So after arranging childcare I drove to the ER expecting to be sitting in a waiting room for several hours but was surprised to be escorted immediately into a room where Jacob was examined by 2 doctors. They left the room to "consult" each other and returned to tell me that he had a bone or joint infection and that they needed to admit him right away and start him on an antibiotic. They told me that they would need to keep him at the hospital for a few days. I was so confused and feeling a whirlwind of emotion in that moment. I called Aaron (who I hadn't been able to get a hold of all day because both our cell phones weren't working) and told him what was going on. I felt like crying I was in so much shock.

That was Thursday, it is now Saturday. I just got back from the hospital where last night Jacob had surgery on his ankle joint and has a tube to drain out the infection and is hooked up to an IV in his arm to give him the antibiotics to fight the infection. He'll be on the antibiotic for the next 3 weeks. Hopefully he will be leaving the hospital on Monday. We are waiting from the lab to find out what the specific infection is. It takes 24 to 48 hours for the bacteria to develop. Then they will hopefully be able to identify what kind of bacteria it is. It is possible that it could be MRSA (which I know little about but I guess it's been on the news lately) so we will just wait to see if it's that or some other form of bacteria. This is all so crazy, I don't know what to think.

Aaron called me on my way home to tell me that they just put the pick line in his arm. I guess that was a pretty horrible experience for both of them. I guess a pick line is a small flexible tube that they insert into the artery so that long term antibiotics can be given without damaging a vein. I'm glad I wasn't there for that, Aaron said it was absolutely terrible.

I'll keep you updated on any new developments as I receive them.