Acute Vertebral Osteomyelitis

Grace began to have back pain about 4 weeks ago. It began to get so severe that we took her into the ER. They diagnosed it as an upper urinary tract infection and put her on an antibiotic. The pain didn't stop. She couldn't even walk and had missed 2 weeks of school.  We took her to our primary care Dr and he took urine and blood and it showed protien in her urine and white blood cells. He did a stonger antibiotic shot in her leg (which she hated) and ordered an ultrasound to check for appendicitis, and gallbladder...nothing. The pain continued and she had to continually be on tylenol and ibupofin or would be crying out in pain. Our Dr. said to take her back to the ER. They did a CT scan...nothing and I demanded an MRI. We weren't going home without knowing what was causing this pain. They found something and diognosed her with Schmorls node and sent a refferal to an orthopedic dr. The more I read about this Schmorls node it said it was asymptotic. It didn't make sense that she was in so much pain. We waited anxiously for our dr. Appointment. 2 days before our scheduled appointment they called and said there was nothing they could do for her and she just needed pain management. I was in tears. There was something wrong! The pain management doctor was actually the one who diognosed her. He saw some infection in her L-3 vertebrae in her back. Infection in the bone is very dangerous and rare. They referred her to an infectious disease doctor in St. George, but he did not feel confident treating a child and referred us to primary children's hospital. Primarys called us the next day and said to get her there asap.  Garrett, I and the 3 little girls hoped in the car as fast as we could. It was a terrible drive. Grace was in so much pain. We didn't get to the Salt Lake area until almost 10:00 and so we decided to check into a hotel and admit her first thing in the morning. Grace whimpered all night in pain and was so nauseous the next morning she  threw up all the way to the hospital. Thankfully Katie picked up Hinckley and Taylor from us and kept them. We got checked into the ER around 8:30 Friday morning, got Grace some nausea medicine and waited. By 3:00 they had us admitted and to a room upstairs. They confirmed the acute vertebral osteomyelitis with another MRI and saw the infection was spreading. They wanted a biopsy to isolate the bacteria, but didn't feel safe going into her spine. They started an intravenous antibiotic. It began working withing 12 hours and we were very hopeful. Grace continued to improve and they sent us home Monday afternoon on a 3 month oral antibiotic treatment plan. We will meet with the Primary doctors monthly, have weekly blood work, and further MRI testing to make sure she is progressing. We feel so grateful for modern medicine and doctors who found her condition and were able to help her.

 Kimball and Ben were angels and took care of the girls while we were up at Primary's. They are the funnest babysitters ever! Ben even taught the girls to index.