Enquiring Minds Want to Know

So we are home from the hospital. As I was waiting for the final dose of antibiotic and packing everything up I just couldn't believe that we had been at the hospital for three weeks. Everything is fine now and Dougan is doing great. In case there was any confusion about all this I will explain EVERYTHING. It all started on a Wed. night at church. We had just finished an awesome activity with the YW. I was cleaning up some of the mess when I heard Dougan crying. I ran to find him with the other leaders and the YW. They said he had fallen off a chair. So I hugged and kissed him and then he felt better. He acted as if nothing was wrong. We went home and got ready for bed and I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.
The next morning I got the kids ready for school and the baby-sitters. Dougan was limping so I figured he must have fallen worse than I thought. After I picked him up from the baby-sitters he was still limping. I kept checking him all day for swelling or bruising but there just wasn't any. On Friday morning Dougan was not able to walk as his knee was very swollen. Tony had just gotten home from work so we put Dougan on the couch with some ice packs and towels to help with swelling. I went to school as usual. When I got home the swelling had not gone down at all. We discussed what to do because we no longer had a family doctor as she had just moved to another state. So I called Mom and Dad to get their professional opinions. Dad said take him in, so I did.
At the ER we sat and sat for a very long time. Dougan got some x-rays and all the other things like weight, blood pressure and such. Finally it was our turn to see a doctor. It probably took 4 hours to see a doctor. I don't know exactly because they don't have clocks anywhere. So the x-ray showed no damage to bones or ligaments. They took a culture from his knee to do some lab work. The doctor was surprised that the sample they took was so clear. He expected it to be cloudy. Anyway after a couple of hours the labs were back and the doctor came in to tell us that the results were very strange. Dougan's white blood cell count was elevated but not nearly at the level it should have been for an infection. He said it was a mystery. He wanted to confer with a bone doctor before he sent us home. At 11:15 a nurse came in an told us Dougan could get dressed and the doctor would be in shortly to give us a prescription. I asked her what time it was and if I could use the phone to call my husband in case he was waiting up. I left a message of what I knew and that we would be home soon.
A couple of hours later the nurse came back in and said she was sorry but Dougan had to get undressed again because our doctor had gone home and the doctor on duty now wanted to look at Dougan. He came in a little while later and checked him out and told us to just sit tight. An hour or so later he came in and told us we were being admitted and going into surgery at 5:30 am. They came to take us to the pediatric unit and I think the one taking us saw how exhausted I was. He asked me to sit on a wheel chair and hold Dougan so we could go up to peds. I had no problem with that. Once at peds they put an iv in Dougan and took us to his room. I looked at the clock and it was a little after 3 am. I couldn't believe it. We finally got to sleep at about 3:30 after the nurses gave us a rundown of what that morning would hold for us. I called Tony and left a message of what was happening at this point.
At 5 am we were woken up to head down to surgery. I sat in the physician's lounge until they were done and one of the doctors came and told me how well it went. Then I was told Dougan was awake and I could go see him. They wanted him to wake up so they kept taking to him. He was just crying because he was so tired. They took us back up to his room. There they wanted him to drink. Finally he woke up enough to drink and then they let us rest. We were woken up whenever a doctor or nurse had info for us. That day we pretty much just slept and waited for the results of the cultures they took from his knee.
From that point all the doctors were meeting together to decide what to do. They still could not find out exactly what started the infection but they knew it was something that was already in his body and because he had hurt his knee it just settled there. They all agreed to put him on antibiotics and one said he needed to stay in the hospital for four weeks. Of course we freaked out a little. It was really hard that first week trying to figure out who would stay at the hospital with Dougan and who would stay with the other kids at home and pick Koen and Eades up from school. Luckily family and friends were helpful and we somehow managed to juggled things for a week. Then the Barclays (some close friends of ours) came and picked up Koen, Eades, and Brandis and took them home with them. From then on the daily stress of bus schedules and someone having to be home nights with them was gone. I was able to just be with Dougan at the hospital.
It was hard to be away from the other three children but I knew they would be fine and I knew Dougan needed me. We were prepared for the remainder of the four weeks. Then a doctor joined in and said that in her and her colleague from Riley's opinions Dougan would only have to be there for three weeks. So that was it. The day before Thanksgiving Tony went and picked up the boys from the Barclay's and they were able to come to the hospital to spend Thanksgiving with us. It was great to all be together. I was so happy to see the boys that morning as it had been two weeks since I had last seen them. I could tell how happy they were to be together. That Saturday we were discharged and we got to come home. It was great too because my parents came from Nevada to celebrate a Thanksgiving/Christmas with us. It was a real home-coming party. And Dougan literally partied like a rock star because his present from Gram and Granddad was this awesome guitar that he just loves.
I know this will be a Thanksgiving that I will never forget. How grateful I was to be with my family, and to have Dougan be alright. It turns out that if Dougan had not fallen off that chair and hurt his knee a little we would have never known that he had an infection in his little body. He had no fever, no diarrhea, nothing that would have given us a clue. The doctors told Tony that if the infection did not attack his knee it would have attacked something else and we probably would have never known until the damage had been done. The infection could have destroyed a bone, a joint, or even an organ. So we saw what a blessing it was and now Dougan can make a 100% recovery. So that's it. That's the story. Dougan has a check-up on Friday and he'll meet with the surgeon in three months. We hope that all will be well. And if there is something still wrong that they will find it so we can fix it. But for now he's running and dancing around as usual. We thank you all for your thoughts and prayers and we thank our Heavenly Father for the blessings he continuously showers upon us.