Christmas Day

Christmas Dinner!

I hope that all of you had less excitement on Christmas day than our family did. We spent the day in 2 different ERs. Daniel's hip started bothering him all of a sudden right before we left for our Christmas Eve service. He hadn't fallen or hit it. He had been watching a movie and when I asked him to go upstairs and get his socks he cried that he couldn't because his leg hurt too much. We went ahead to the service even though I had to practically carry him to and from the car. We thought he had a muscle cramp and eventually it would go away. The pain kept waking him up in the night even though we had given him pain med. So when we got up Christmas morning we went to an ER in Brooklyn. We think we chose the best one, at least for the pediatric ER. The staff was wonderful. There were TVs at every bed. They ran blood tests, took xrays, did an ultrasound. Everything was normal except they saw fluid in the joint on the ultrasound. They were concerned about a bacterial infection in the hip joint. The er dr. did a great job of really scaring us by telling us that an infection could cause permanent damage and could cause him to lose his hip and have to have a hip replacement! At 7 yrs. old! There wasn't an orthopedic surgeon on call on Christmas day at that hospital so they immediately had him transferred to a hospital in Manhattan. Daniel and Paul got to ride in an ambulance while I took Jae to a friend's house and drove to meet them at the hospital. He was seen by many dr.s and all the tests were repeated at the Cornell University ER, plus they did some other tests. Finally, at 10:30pm, after many dr.s consulted on the test results, the expert Orthopedic surgeon from the Hospital for Special Surgery came in to examine him and talk to us. He said all the tests were normal showing no signs of an infection except for the ultrasound which showed fluid in the joint. So he felt sure that it wasn't a bacterial infection but "idiopathic transient synovitis". Translated, according to the material the hospital gave us, "inflammation of the joint which cause is unknown and will pass". According to the sheet and the dr.s advice "rest and reduced weight bearing usually ensure resolution of the symptoms within 10 days." So Daniel was released from the hospital at about 11pm Christmas night. But not before he got to eat his Christmas Dinner: his sandwich and chips that he had started eating at lunch time which the dr. made us take away in case he needed to be sedated for a precedure. He had only eaten about 2 bites and didn't get to eat anything until 10:30pm. That's a looong time for Daniel to go without eating! All day long we was constantly asking when he could eat.

We had our family Christmas celebration yesterday and Daniel's leg was feeling so much better that it was impossible to keep him still. This morning he's complaining that it's sore but not as bad as Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I still can't keep him sitting or laying down but at least he's not running and jumping around. I think his soreness is a result of not taking it easy yesterday.

The dr. told us to watch him carefully for the 24-48 hrs. after being released from the hospital. We're to take his temperature regularly and watch for the pain to increase and him to hold his leg out to the side to relieve the pain. If either of those develop we're to take him immediately back to the hospital and they will take a sample of the fluid in the hip joint and test for infection, which will require sedation. But so far he hasn't had any fever the entire time.

Even though spending the day at hospitals was not the way we wanted to spend Christmas Day we are so thankful for the wonderful staffs at both hospitals. The ambulance driver even took the route into Manhattan that Daniel requested! We expected to have to deal with grumpy dr.s and nurses, not happy about having to work on Christmas day but they were all great. We were all treated with respect and kindness by everyone. Not something we've experienced at other hospitals on other days here in NYC. We know that Daniel recieved the best care possible. We will need to follow up with his regular dr. and possibly a joint specialist to see if this was caused by something that needs to be looked into. The dr. said it could be the result of an upper respiratory infection that he had a week ago or so. But we haven't noticed any sickness recently. It could also be the beginning of some sort of arthritis. We hope not.

Other news: We secured an apartment on Wednesday. We were able to talk the owner down to a 6 month lease. If he's able to rent it soon after we move into a house then we won't have to continue paying the rent for the remaining lease time. It's a nice apartment in a good location, I'm looking forward to moving in (well, not the actual "moving in" part, but the "being in" part!) We also saw another house that we feel we could live in. We placed an offer on it and should know by next week if it was accepted or not. Then, if it is accepted, we'll need God to give us wisdom to know whether to sign a contract on that house or to wait and see what happens with the other one, the house we really want. Please pray for wisdom for us.

We move out of this house on Jan. 9th and should close on it the following week. It's going to be sad moving out. We've lived here for 11 1/2 yrs and its the only home Jae and Daniel have known.

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.

Thank you for your prayers.

Have a Happy New Year!