A little backstory - Hannah and her girls had been up to visit for the week while Merrick was in California working. On Thursday (the day they left) Ephraim complained that his knee was hurting. Since he was running and jumping on it, I told him it was growing pains. On Friday he didn't feel well and was running a fever of 101. We spent the day watching tv. (Don't you love when you have to text your friends that your kid is sick the day after they played with them?)
On Saturday morning (the 4th) the kids and I were relaxing in our bed before getting up for the day. Ephraim said he had to go potty and got off of the bed. He then told me "Mommy I can't walk." I told him to crawl to the bathroom (I didn't really believe him). He did. I followed him to the bathroom where he couldn't get down off of the toilet. Ephraim was unable to put any weight on his left leg. At all. He could stand on his right leg, but was unable to even put his toes down on the ground on his left leg.
He still had a low fever so I gave him some Motrin, put him in front of the tv and talked to Forrest about what we should do. It was just weird. Ephraim hadn't injured his leg, was complaining about his knee hurting, but could crawl if he absolutely needed to. After talking on the phone with my sister Colleen (a nurse) we decided we should take him to urgent care to see what was going on. Being the super concerned parents that we are - we decided to go to lunch at Costco first. I am glad that we did - it would end up being the only food Ephraim got all day.
At urgent care we were actually seen pretty quickly. Ephraim was running a fever again (101.2) so they decided to give him more Motrin (just a note - the amount they gave E was 7mL - which is more than the bottle tells you to give his age. Check with your pediatrician about what the correct dose should be for your kiddo - they do it by weight). After checking out Ephraim the Dr. decided to run some blood work to see if he was fighting an infection and started consulting with the ER at Mary Bridge (Children's hospital in Tacoma). It was decided we should head to the ER. We left urgent care (after both kids got popsicles) with no diagnosis and strict instructions to not let E eat or drink anything else. There was a possibility that he could have an infection in his joint and have excess fluid. If that was the case they would need to put him under general anesthesia to remove the excess fluid.
When we met with our pediatrician on Monday Ephraim could still not walk. He no longer had a fever and had figured out that he could still play with all of his toys if he was on the floor and could crawl. Our pediatrician agreed with the ER diagnosis of toxic synovitis, but said that Ephraim was the 1% of cases where the inflammation is in the knee. Our pediatrician sees less than 1 case of toxic synovitis a year. He told us that if Ephraim could still not walk by Wed then we needed to see a pediatric orthopedic surgeon since they would be more familiar with toxic synovitis.
Thankfully by late Monday afternoon - Ephraim was doing this funky bear crawl that had him partially putting weight on his leg. By bedtime on Monday he was able to walk. He complained about knee pain for another 3 days so we continued giving him Motrin, but after that he was fine.
Some interesting facts about toxic synovitis. It is most common in boys 3-10 years old. There is no known cause. It usually lasts anywhere from 3-7 days. There is a 20% chance that it could reoccur. Motrin is believed to help and cut down the time frame.
Looking back - it was a strange couple of days. At first it was a hassle to carry both of my kids everywhere, but we adjusted. Ephraim also learned how to get around without walking and was less dependent on being carried. We are so thankful that it was nothing serious and are grateful for the good medical care that we received. Hopefully that is Ephraim's only trip to the ER this year.
