anyhoo, the reason i have been M.I.A of late has been because of my sweet little mia. let me tell you a really long story:
almost three weeks ago, on a monday, mia quit using her left arm. strange. i noticed that she was holding her snacks in her hand but not bending her arm to put them in her mouth. i didn't think much of it until i realized she still wasn't bending her arm to hold her bottle at night. (yeah yeah, she is over a year old and i haven't weaned her from the bottle yet! judge not lest you be judged too... or something like that). oh yeah, and she was in a TERRIBLE mood all day too. but i attributed it all to teething, cause that's just what we moms do. or at least that's what i do. every time, 60% of the time...
so, instead of being a superconcerned and vigilant mom who needed to know IMMEDIATELY what is bothering my baby girl, i went to sleep. cause i was tired! but the next morning, still cranky and still not using her arm, i brought her to an urgent care right by our house, and conveniently right by lily's school. even though we got there an hour and a half before lily needed to be at school, my sweet SIL, lindsay, had to rush over to the rescue and drop lily off for me. this was the first of many favors owed to lindsay...
after a few x-rays, the doctor at the urgent care was convinced that mia had something called 'nurse maid's elbow' where a ligament gets caught in between two bones and just needs to be pulled out by a series of different arm twists. it didn't work. mostly cause mia didn't have nurse maid's elbow! but, because in the doctor's professional opinion, she was too tense, so he sent us to cardon's children's hospital's ER where they were going to sedate my girl for 2 minutes and pop her elbow back into place. so off we went to the ER where a doctor looked at mia's xrays that i brought with me, and he said that she definitely had a fractured elbow. even though he couldn't see a fracture in the xray, there was some dark shadowing around the joint, and apparently that is a 'clear' sign that there was a fracture present. so they put mia's tiny little arm in a temporary cast and sling, and sent us on our way. in the middle of all this, chris, my phenomenal husband, left work early and sped to pick lily up on time, and was home to support me in the midst of this long and expensive day.
i had an appointment with an orthopedic specialist on thursday. they took mia's once tiny arm out of her temporary cast, and we were greeted by a very swollen and sad looking arm. they did some more xrays but couldn;t really see a whole lot since her arm was so puffy. so the doctor set mia's big ol' arm in a splint with some loose bandaging and told me to up her pain meds and let her arm breath a little every day, and to come back on monday.
sunday rolled around, and we were going to have a birthday dinner for chris at his mom's house. i showed barb mia's arm and she was not happy with what she saw. she said the swelling did not look normal and that there were red areas that looked like they were signs of an infection. all these 'signs'! so many of them wrong! but unfortunately, my not-a-doctor mother-in-law was right. we went to banner desert hospital and the ER doctor there was just as alarmed as barb was at the sight of mia's ever growing arm. after MANY long hours there, we were ambulanced over to cardon's, where we spent the next 5 days!
on monday, she got lots of blood drawn, was sedated, had an MRI, was diagnosed with a septic joint, rested, was sedated again, had surgery to clean out her elbow, came out of surgery, had her IV infiltrate her good arm- which means the IV came out of her vein and instead was pumping her arm full of liquid. so ironically her good arm swelled up to the same size as her infected arm! can you believe it????? so they put her IV in her head, which was fine while both of her arms were swollen, but the minute mia's IV arm deflated and was ready for action- she pulled the IV out of her head and there was blood every where. it was a disaster, which perfectly sums up mia's run-in with the medical community in the last three weeks.
we were FLOODED with love and concern and prayers, which is the only reason we made it out of the hospital with no fatalities under our belt. we celebrated our 7 year anniversay and chris' 33rd birthday in mia's hospital room on wednesday, while lily and topher were being cared for by the 6th of 8 couples who watched them over the course of mia's 6 days in the hospital. i did not get our christmas cards in the mail, and am presently still debating whether or not i should send them out this year or not...
so, that's why i have been missing in action for the last three weeks. apparently, after everything was said and done, mia never had a fractured elbow ever, or nurse maid's elbow, or anything else that the doctor's said she had. if anyone had bothered doing any blood work, they would have caught on that mia had an infection, but alas, no one did. even though when i was asked how she might have fractured it, or gotten the nurse maid's elbow, i told them that there were no incidents of mia really hurting herself.
anyway, i am so glad that it's all over, and that our little mia is getting stronger every day. i am also SO glad to be blessed with so many friends and family who love us and support us- in real and tangible ways, whether it's throught sending texts, watching lily and topher, bringing us food, bringing us starbucks, lots and lots of other things! we are so so so so so very very blessed.
here's mia all bundled up in the ambulance
before surgery :(
here's chris in the harmony garden in the middle of the hospital being as sarcastic as his shirt says he is.
happy birthday chris! :)
this pic was the beginning of the drama from our first visit to cardon's 3 weeks ago
the cutest hospital patient! after four days of being isolated in her room, she was so happy to be allowed to cruise the hallways.
on the mend with her cute pink bandage after the stitches came out
freedom! still keeping her arm straight as a board, but making it look good!
