Knee Problems

Sunday morning I noticed for like the 4th or 5th time that Emjae was limping in the morning. It seemed as if she had sprained her knee or ankle and didn't want any pressure on it. One of those mornings there was something on the bottom of her foot so I figured that was the problem. Another morning I thought she just must be sleeping on it weird and her leg is asleep, but Sunday I looked more closely at her knee and it was swollen. I didn't think anything of it because as the day would go on she would be running and putting more pressure on it and if you weren't watching the way she walked you wouldn't probably notice. She just wont or cant straighten her left knee out all the way.
We decided to take her to the Dr, because we have insurance and its better to be safe then sorry. Julie also had a really horrible diaper rash that didn't seem to want to get better so we took both of them. Apparently Julie has a yeast infection of sorts, and with the medicine being used the last two days it looks tons better already. However with Emjae the Dr, the best Dr I have ever known, Dr. LeSueur didn't know what the deal was. We went to go get X-rays and James was with her for that. I was outside listening to her cry. But then it was my turn to hold her and for James to hold Julie because they were going to draw blood. I had to hold her head and shoulders, someone had to hold her arm, and another nurse had to hold her legs so the nurse that needed to draw blood could do so. I almost cried. She was trying to kick and scream and get out. The blood work came back fine and they couldn't really tell anything with the X-rays so we were sent to a Specialist Dr. Kimball.
Dr. Kimball is a Orthopedic Surgeon. So as we had to explain the story of how we noticed it again he had her walk down the hall and watch her. We came back in and he felt her knee and noticed that it was a bit swollen and that she wouldn't straighten it even with pressure from him trying to and he came to a conclusion that it could be Discoid Lateral Meniscus. He explained it as the meniscus being a pancake instead of a half moon so that the joint can finish rotating. He set up an MRI for us.
Tuesday:
We are scheduled for a 10:30 MRI. Well we were scheduled to start her sedation at 10:30. Out comes 2 nurses and another lady with a cart full of toys. Emjae saw all the stuff and as they tried to listen to her heart she started to cry. None of the toys were calming her down until out came the BUBBLES!!!! Emjae was much happier, that is until we had to hold her down for the IV. They tried to put it in her right hand twice. And it wasn't just a quick try. We were there for about 7 minutes on that hand. Then we switched to her left and it still took a while to get it in her vein but it finally did.

The nurses had to give her some fluids and Emjae was not wanting any of that. James would hold her and they would hide behind a curtain to put them in. It took about 8 minutes before she fell asleep, but she would still whimper every once in awhile. We were able to follow her down to the door of the MRI but we couldn't go in.

It took 45 minutes before it was done. We took her back to the area that we gave her the sedation and within 20 minutes she was starting to wake up or more so drink with her eyes closed. It reminded me of a sleeping baby eating. We weren't allowed to leave until she could keep down fluids and the on site Dr wanted to talk to Dr Kimball before we left. That kind of scared us a little, and when we were ready to go the nurse called the on site Dr and he came out to us. His name was Dr. Kendall.
We were informed that Emjae had fluid in her knee and that they needed to take it out right away. They hadn't gotten a hold of Dr Kimball, but they didn't want to wait. If there was an infection we need to know as soon as possible because it could cause more problems the longer it is in her joint. So we were rushed right over to the room they would remove the fluid. by the time we got there she had probably hadn't had any fluids for almost an hour. The nurses that gave her the sedation told us that its best to wait 2 hours before we try to sedate her and give her medicine so she wont feel anything or remember it. If we didn't wait that she could possibly throw up and have it go into her lungs with out us knowing, but the risk of trying to do the procedure without the medicines would be much worse. We took the risk and gave her the meds.
We were taken out of the room and 20 minutes later they were cleaning up the mess. They had to poke her twice to get the fluid out. They got about a teaspoon of fluid and it was a good sign that there was no puss.
We were taken to the pediatric recovery and were told we would probably being staying over night.

The lady with the cart of toys and goodies came by and checked on us again. All the nurses were calling her sleeping beauty and well we were given a dress up sleeping beauty dress. After the initial labs came back from the fluid it didn't show any signs of high white blood cell counts so they decided to send us home. We ended up going home with a tutu, a crown, a baby doll, bubbles, a dress, a coupon for free ice cream, and a black back.
When we got home Emjae seemed to be walking again. She woke up this morning with the usual walk she has been doing for awhile and it doesn't seem anything has changed. We went to the drs and they wanted to see us back on friday. By then they will have the results from the rest of the tests and if everything shows up negative then our next things are to figure out what caused this. There is a possibility of Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, but we will have to go to a different specialist for that. Our appt is with our family doctor, and we will probably be having another appt Monday with Dr. Kimball the one who set up the MRI.
This is what her knee looks like right now. There are two dots and thats were they went in to draw out the fluid.

It looks really really swollen here but its not as swollen as this picture makes it seem. Its only because her knee is bent.
There are many unknowns, but we are not to scared. We have concerns and hope all is well, but we know that everything will be okay no matter what. We have done all that we can and we are doing all that the Lord is asking of us. It is in his hands and he has our best interest at heart. Thank you everyone for your prayers and your thoughts. Thank you grandma for watching Julie and for Amy coming down to help. I don't know what we would do with out a place to crash and people to help us out. Thank you.