As I write this, I am sitting in a room on the pediatrics floor of the local hospital with my oldest son Zack.  Later today, Zack will be having 2 screws placed in the growth plate of his right hip.

The last 48 hours have been crazy!

On Monday, we lost a family member.  The Alex’s Uncle C that the children were very close to passed away unexpectedly leaving the entire family in shock.  After learning of Uncle C’s passing we didn’t think the week could get worse.

We were wrong.

Soooo wrong.

Tuesday started with a trip to see the fantabulous Dr. J, our family doctor because Alexander has developed a nasty cough and I decided to have Zack piggyback Alexander’s appointment since the pain he had been having in his hip for 2 weeks had all of the sudden become very, very painful making it hard for him to walk.

Alexander checked out pretty good other than the fact that he has pneumonia.

Zack was sent for x-rays and lab work to try to figure out what was going on with his hip.

An hour and a half later after seeing that Zack’s levels were elevated and Dr. J’s consult with an orthopedist, we were sent to the ER for more tests.

We arrived at the hospital at 1pm.
By 3pm he was having an MRI on his hip to check for fluid because they suspected that he had a septic hip.
After the MRI we met with Dr. S from ortho who informed us that there was fluid in the hip joint and they would need to do a needle aspiration to check for infection.
(I do NOT recommend watching your child have a needle aspiration. I think I shed more tears then he did. It was so hard to watch him in pain and not be able to help.)

The needle aspiration showed no sign of infection in the fluid but we did learn that Zack has a slipped growth plate (Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphysis) and would need surgery.

After that we were admitted to the peds floor and finally left the ER.
The good news is that they are taking very good care of him. He’s been happily sitting in his hospital bed playing video games thanks to their XBOX360 Kiosks, watching movies and getting familiar with the controls on his bed.

They have helped control a lot of the pain thanks to some great meds, meaning he has been very entertaining!

The downside is that Zack will have to miss out on going deer hunting, something he was really looking forward to doing.

I will update with another post after surgery since Zack has granted me permission and has also been helping come up with creative titles and write the posts!

Wish us luck!