Peace, Be Still

Only a few days ago, I felt a feeling that I haven't felt in a long time.  At least a year, maybe longer if I'm being honest with myself; I probably have not felt it since we moved to South Carolina.  Peace.  Utter and complete contentment.  All of my children are happy, we feel optimistic about our future and everything finally seems to be falling into place like a puzzle.  Honestly, I don't think I realized how much stress I have been carrying until I felt it all being released.  A few weeks prior, my jaw was having muscle spasms from being clenched so much.  I'm so grateful that this moment in my life is over.

Most of the stress I've been carrying was related to Elsa.  I love my sweet little girl, but she has been in pain most of her life and it's taken us a very long year to get all of her issues resolved.  In nearly every picture we take of her, you see this bright smile and happiness coming through, but the reality has been that those moments are very fleeting and she hasn't been a child I can really put down on the floor to play by herself.  Her sleeping patterns have been interrupted with every ear infection and those have been nearly non-stop.  In the middle of April, we FINALLY were able to have her get ear tubes put in.  Most everyone I talked to told me to expect a different child after the procedure was done; that it would solve all of her problems and that we would see that happy spirit you see in her pictures finally begin to emerge on a more regular basis.  Needless to say, that never happened. 

Elsa was increasingly grumpy after her surgery and her sleep seemed to be even more interrupted than before if that were even possible.  We were convinced after two weeks of this behavior that her ear infections had returned and so after one impossible day, we took her to convenient care.  They noted that she was agitated, but her ears were fine and they didn't note any other problems.  So they sent us home and we were left to wonder what could possibly be wrong.  At about 2am Sunday morning Elsa woke up after a very restless night, screaming in pain especially when she put weight on her foot, which was hot to the touch.  I told Steve I was taking her to the ER and we drove over there only to find a waiting room stacked to the brim.  Another couple with a baby was sitting near us and so I asked them how long they had been waiting.  They told me "too long."  After sitting there for several hours, I decided to go home and wait for convenient care to open again.  The guy manning the ER intake area told me that was probably a good idea.  Steve let me rest, thankfully, and took her in by himself.

I awoke to Steve telling me he was taking Elsa to the Children's Hospital and that they suspected that she had either a joint infection or a fracture in her ankle.  I was a little nervous about that prospect, but was grateful to finally be getting some answers.  Steve took her in and I got the other kids ready for church and dropped them off with a friend so I could go to the hospital to see how things were progressing.  I thought we would be there for a few hours tops, but it soon became apparent that we wouldn't be leaving for a long time.  Every day we were there, the amount of time they told us to stay got longer.  This started to get complicated when we realized we might be in the hospital during the same time that we had planned to go to Florida with Steve who was supposed to be presenting at a conference down there.  The last thing I felt I could handle at that point, was trying to take care of Elsa in the hospital and somehow manage the other children with Steve gone.  It was really more than I could handle at that point. 

 She still had to smile at the camera, but it was clearly difficult for her to manage one.  You can see in the picture her ankle is a little red and swollen. 

Clearly some of our family had a much more positive outlook on the whole experience.

 

Spongebob addicts

After they diagnosed a joint infection, took out all the pus in her ankle and started her IV antibiotics, Elsa was clearly feeling much better and wanting to be free of her prison crib and her IV.  Sleep was still very difficult as the nurses kept coming in at all hours and we had three different teams of doctors (attending, orthopedics, and infectious disease) who would come in and give conflicting answers about when we could come home.  There was also an IV alarm that would go off at the worst possible moments (where's a mute button when you need one?).  The only people who enjoyed being at the hospital were Rowan and Nadia who were thrilled at the free chocolate milk, cable tv, and expansive toy room.  Everyday we would do a change of the guards where I would be relieved of the day shift, we would eat dinner in the cafeteria (which Rowan and Nadia also loved), Steve would take on the night shift and the next day we would start the routine all over again.  It was so exhausting.  My heart goes out to families who have to do this on a much more regular basis.  I don't know how you do it.  We were only there for 6 days and it felt like an eternity.

This is how sad poor Elsa was at the beginning of her hospital stay- she couldn't even crack a smile for the camera.  The hospital had these cars available so we could get some "fresh air" from our room.  We did the rounds quite a bit on our floor.

Nadia found her own way to get a free ride.

The short-lived cast.  It was only on for 24 hours before she "houdinied" her way out of it.  It was a bit of a blessing disguise as it happened the day before discharge.  We were delayed 8 hours because of it, which was kind of a pain as we were leaving for Florida the moment we could get Elsa out of the hospital, but she was so much happier to be out of it.  I couldn't imagine trying to keep her content in the car, at the beach, in the hotel room, etc in a cast that made movement near impossible for her.  I still don't completely understand why they put it on when all she had were a few stitches.

Anyways, despite quite an odd conflict with our teams of doctors (ortho and infectious disease said we should stay 10 days and the attending told us to leave even earlier than we did), we were able to get out in time to get to Florida.  Elsa was clearly relieved to be able to finally crawl freely when she got home, but that didn't last long before we stuck her in the car for 9 hours to Florida.  Still, anything was better than the hospital.

Much thanks for the friends who watched our kids when we could not!  My sweet visiting teacher even took our car in to get serviced so we could get on our trip in time.  I am so grateful for everyone's kindness.