Much Harder Than Anticipated

Current status:  She's still in a lot of pain, but now has a diagnosis and a strategy. There's a procedure planned for this afternoon which should help.

Details:

The swelling in her knee is internal bleeding.  They drew fluid from her knee to test on Wednesday, and the results that have come back ruled out gout and infection (by far the scariest option) and it doesn't look like an auto-immune condition either.

This means that she has hemarthrosis of her knee which is basically bleeding into a joint.  She had been on blood thinners since June (when she had a clot in her arm) but they discontinued them this week after several ultrasounds confirmed that she doesn't have any clots.  

That should allow her body to reabsorb the blood (think of the way a bruise heals, with your body breaking down the trapped blood).  Today they're going to try to speed up that healing by injecting some steroids into the knee and possibly releasing some of the trapped blood and pressure.  

She's been in extreme pain and on heavy painkillers (that haven't really ever brought her pain below a 5) all week, and she's been completely immobile.  Full bed rest, not even able to roll over.  So she's doing okay, considering, and she's being incredibly brave, but this has been a much harder situation than we anticipated.

We feel better having a diagnosis- especially a diagnosis that is not infection- and are hopeful that the steroids will accelerate her healing and give some relief quite quickly.

Thanks for all your love, we love you too xoxoxox