Remembering

When I realized the date today, it took me back twelve whole years to when Hannah had surgery as a baby. I thought I'd write down the story.

She had been sick for a few days, with a fever and just not acting quite right. She was 8 months old and just starting to crawl. She all of a sudden stopped crawling and when she would sit up she would lean to one side strangely. I took her to the doctor and of course she acted fine while we were there. The doctor went ahead and ordered x-rays of her leg and hip just to make sure nothing was wrong. That was on the 13th. The next day she seemed a little better, and the doctor told us that the x-rays were normal. That night, she had a raging fever all night and didn't sleep, it seemed like her hip was hurting, and my mom and I knew that something was definitely wrong. We took her to the doctor as soon as they opened (January 15th) and they did some blood work. They did a test to find her "sed rate" which measures inflammation in the body. A normal range for her would have been 0-15, and hers was 40. They also reviewed the x-rays again and realized that the x-ray technician had not done the hip, just the leg. They immediately sent us to the hospital.

I was supposed to start a new job at Wells Fargo that day, and I had to call them and tell them what was going on. I was worried I would get fired, but I obviously didn't care about anything but Hannah at that point. When we got to the hospital they did some more tests, including a spinal tap. They did not let me come in the room and I just stayed out in the hall crying and completely freaking out. They determined that she had a bacterial infection that had settled in her hip joint and needed to be cleaned out through surgery. Some time that evening, they took her into surgery. I cannot describe the feeling of having your child taken away on a gurney and realizing that you have no control over their life at that point. I'm so thankful that she received a priesthood blessing.

The surgery went perfectly and they were able to completely clean out the infected area. We still to this day do not know exactly what caused the infection. It could have been an injury that we didn't realize she had, or just an infection that thought her hip would be a nice place to live. We will never know. She stayed in the hospital for nine long days after that. I would sleep in one of those reclining chairs each night next to her metal hospital crib which looked more like a cage. At some point she would end up in the chair with me and I would fall asleep nursing her. My mom would come to the hospital every morning so I could run home and take a shower, and then come straight back. We had a great medical staff that took care of her, from nurses to our pediatrician to the infectious disease doctors and her surgeon.

She had to have a pick line put in her shoulder so that IV antibiotics could be administered to make sure that the infection was completely taken care of. We had to learn how to do that and keep it clean Amazingly she has no scar from the surgery and just the slightest scar from the pick line. My mom had started a new job right before this happened and she was absolutely hating it. When Hannah was sick she called and quit her job, which turned out to be one of the biggest blessings. Being a single mom I already relied on my parents a lot, but I would not have been able to work or go to school if my mom had not quit her job and taken care of Hannah during that time. I also think about how young and uneducated I was about everything that was going on. Thank goodness I had my parents to ask questions and keep up with the medical side of everything.

We had to follow up with the surgeon for several years after that, because there was a chance that Hannah could have had one leg shorter than another or other permanent damage from the surgery, but by the time she was about 4 they determined that she would have no side effects from the experience. That was such a relief as well.

I know many of you have experienced traumatic moments with your children and can relate to how scary it is. I'm grateful that we were so blessed. (Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that while all this was going on, my brother Chris found out that he was going to have brain surgery! When it rains, it definitely pours. Thankfully there was a happy ending to that story too.)

I wish I had a scanner so I could post a baby picture of Hannah!