Pippi's Adventure in the Hospital

Poor little Pip-a-Roo, she got a cold about 3 weeks ago and the cold virus settled in her hip joints, instead of say her lungs, or wherever else it's normal for a cold to settle. The cold virus built up fluid in her hip that caused her a lot of pain and could have caused permanent damage to her hip joints- with the worst effect of not allowing her to walk. What she had is called Septic Joint. (Google it, it's somewhat common.)

She went into the hospital on Tuesday morning and had several procedures done to determine what was going on. Wednesday she had the actually surgery. The orthopaedic surgeon said they found a whole lot of pretty foul puss, and that we made a very good decision to operate. The nurse was amazed at the amount of fluid in her little joint.


 Thursday they inserted a PICC line (A PICC line is a peripherally inserted central catheter. It is a long, slender, small, flexible tube that is inserted into a peripheral vein, typically in the upper arm, and advanced until the catheter tip terminates in a large vein in the chest near the heart to obtain intravenous access.) so that we could give her her IV drugs at home. And friday they
sent her home with us.   Now that she's home she's feeling a lot better, it's just a ton of work giving her her IV drugs.  

This is a shot of her in the recovery room after

they drained her little hip.

Pippi right before the aspiration (the above picture)

About 2 hours after her main surgery

 One of my dear friends is a nurse at the hospital. She made us feel better by being there with us.

 Pip getting her PICC

They kept her awake to get the PICC...it was torture seeing her scared and in pain and not being able to hold her and reassure her.

Pip after all her procedures and under massive drugs

 Our at home medical center!