Friday, June 26, 2015

Toxic Synovitis

We knew having two boys would require at least one trip to the ER, but we were assuming it would be for stitches or a broken arm...

The Sunday after the boys' 2&4 year appointments, Porter had what seemed like a stomach bug. He had a mild fever and other...gastrointestinal symptoms...we didn't think much of it, the kid always gets any stomach bug that's going around. We increased his fluids, put him on the BRAT diet and kept going at full-speed. On Thursday, Paxton had speech early so I just grabbed Porter from his bed, got him dressed on the couch and carried him straight to the car. His feet never hit the floor until we got back home from dropping Pax off. I set him down right inside the door and was running around putting stuff away from the morning rush. After a few minutes, I realized that he hadn't really moved from where I had set him down and he was whimpering. That's when I realized something was wrong. He refused to put weight on his leg and seemed like he was in pain. I scanned his leg and felt around and didn't see any redness or swelling and no specific area seemed to be causing him pain, so I thought maybe it was a sore muscle or he slept on it wrong. We picked up Paxton and took him to the pediatrician, just to make sure. He wouldn't really move at all. His pediatrician wasn't in so we saw a different doctor. He squeezed all around and also commented that nothing seemed unusual but that he was definitely refusing to put weight on it and limping severely. He sent us to get X-Rays. 

X-Rays came back normal so we were told to just watch him. We checked in with his pediatrician the next day since he was still limping and seemed uncomfortable. She told us that with normal x-Rays there wasn't anything they could do and just to keep watching him. She said that if he spiked a fever that he needed to go to the ER. That weekend, Paxton and I headed south for our Dallas trip. I hated leaving Porter but knew that he would be in good hands with Jared. Sunday when we came home, he was still limping but otherwise seemed fine. That night after we put him to bed, we went and checked on him around 10:30 and he woke up a little but his movements were really jerky and he seemed kind of out of it. I scooped him up and immediately noticed now hot and sweaty he was. His temp was 102.7. We called the after-hours number and they told us to bring him in immediately and to be prepared to be admitted. They were thinking he had a bone infection. We sent an exhausted Pax to Gramsy's and loaded Porter up. That ride to Children's Hospital was terrifying. I kept picturing my baby lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to IV's. 

We got there and they rushed him straight back. They sent us for more x-Rays and then took lots of blood. That was rough. They put a port in for an IV. By that time it was about 2 am but Porter was content to play on the iPad. 
After another hour of waiting, the doctor came back and basically ruled everything out except Toxic Synovitis. He said that Porter's stomach virus had probably infected his hip joint and was causing the issues...I'm not sure I bought it...especially for $6000 before insurance...but that's all we got. 

The next day, Porter found a new way to get around (which to me was one of the signs that it wasn't his hip). 
Within a few days he was back to normal except for a minuscule limp and by the next week, it was like it never happened. It was such a weird and scary thing, but we are glad he's feeling better now!