Okay - so it only took 3 hour to get the iv in her. 2 failed attempts here and one failed attempt in pediatric emergency ward (or paediatric - apparently the donors of that wing were british)
Ilana went to sleep shortly thereafter (it was quite traumatic for her, to say the least) and my mother inlaw came to watch her and I left for home at abt 5pm
Tamar came in @ 8 - and found Avigayil and Ariana also had come to visit (thanks guys!) and I fell asleep on the couch holding binaymin until 4 am
Tamar’s night went late, as Ilana had napped late, but once she went to sleep, she slept through till morning. I got up @ 4, davened maariv, took the one remaining dry kid to the bathroom and went to sleep until 6:15.
Now (wednesday - I know, it’s hard for me to keep track too!), yehoshua is at his last day of camp, Binyamin is in Maon, and the girls when with the neighbor to the hospital to visit Ilana!
I have a meeting in Jerusalem @ 4 - Tamar is leaving when my mother in law comes @ 3 and I’ll take the night shift starting from 5/6 pm.
Status update: swelling is better - fever is down, spirits are good. She’s responding slowly to the antibiotics. she still cannot bear weight on her left foot - but is able to place the foot fully on the ground momentarily while ‘storking’.
The ultrasound seems to have been relatively inconclusive, and the xrays show the inside bone structure of the foot and ankle - what did you expect them to show?
we’re waiting for the doctor’s prognosis and then we’ll know what course of action to take - long term antibiotics @ set her up to go home and take them @ home, or shorter term and stay in the hospital.
I vote for the former - the hospital is no place for sick people…

I got to the park today to find Yehoshua perched up on some metal structure that I don’t think was meant for climbing,
In fact, I don’t think it was even one of the toys in the park. He screams out to me -
Yehoshua: Abba - Poopy!
Me: Yehoshua - that’s night a nice thing to say!
Y: No Abba! - On your shoulder - bird poopy!
M:(to self) Oh - poopy!
Some days you’re the pigeon, some days you’re the statue!

wow - this is so much easier with my laptop - thank you Tamar!
Okay - today was super busy, but veery productive and we have reservedly good news, so I’ll skip right to the juicy part:
It looks like the treatment is working - and they (some of them, anyway) think they know what the cause is.
Last night I ran out of the uphearin without helping to clean up (sorry!) because I had a ride back with Tzvi, and anyway Michal had been watching Ilana for lmost 6 hours already(Thanks yous)
I got to the hospital around 9:30 to meet a tired by happy Ilana. Her fever had not returned all day, and the swelling was a little better.
I put her in Jammies and she went to sleep.
At 1:00 she woke up crying. I tried to calm her, but she was restless. I took her to the hallway, where a nurse saw me and asked if I wanted acamol to help her pain.
Right! I said to myself, as I made the connection in my little brain. Hospital =drugs=mmm mmm good!
so she brought me neurofen, and within 20 minutes, Ilana was lights out for the night.
She woke up aound 9, after her antibiotices, in a great mood.
I had davened already, checked in @ work and gotten my ducks in a row.
Then came the doctors. They came in droves, like my chevy used to do.
First it was the general ‘i see everybody’ doctor. She told us that it’s good to see her fever is gone, the swelling is a bit less, the affected area feels cooler and she was able to stand and rest the toes of her foot on the ground - she’s much less sensitive there, baruch Hashem.
Then it was ‘specialist-i’ve been a doctor 30 year’ doctor.
He discussed the issue at length, and told us the blood tests came back with a strep viridans in the culture (feel free to look it up, I’d never heard of it either.)
At any rate, he said it was just there because of the infection, and 99% of the time it’s harmless. BUT, in a very small percentage of adults it can cause a heart issue. soooo, just to be sure - get up to cardiology on the tenth floor, find the doctor yourself and get it checked out. Oh - and take your medical record with you and bring it back to us when you’re done. Oh, and watch out for the 15 janitors standing outside your room on the way out all speaking arabic.
On to the 10th floor. They were waiting for us, so I had no time for elevators. Am I boring you? Me too. I’ll switch to the quick version.
Cardiologist: she has a great heart - and such beautiful valves!
Mike: Thanks - we’ve been changing her oil every 5000 miles!
Cardiologist smiles, thinks to himself: such a beautiful heart, too bad she has a lunatic for a father.
He discusses with another doctor on the phone empahtically: Why do you think it’s septic arthritis? Her *insert big medical word here* was only 5000?… So what - lots of other things also ake it that you can’t put pressure on your foot/limb!… Hangs up - (to me):Okay - go to the -I’m the professor who stuck your daughter with a needle on thursday and extracted 5cc+ of liquid from your ankle joint on thursday- doctor on the 8th floor - he’s waiting for you.
Good luck trying to find his office.
Well, we found him.
He was also happy yo see the swelling went down.
His bottom line:
Wait and see another day - but the trick is: when Ilana’s back to running on her left foot, it means we can discuss going home.
In the meanwhile, we can keep praying.
Once all the doctor visits were finished, we came back to the room and Ilana got into her bed, happy and safe to be away from all the poking, prodding, pushing, and phunny machinery.
Then we napped, got our afternoon medicine, and went for a walk @ 3.
Here’s a picture of Ilana feeding her bamba to the birds:

Tamar and the kids met us for pizza and some family time @ 5.
We then walked to a nearby park until 8.
By 8, the kids were ll in jammies and in the car, except Ilana :(
She and I walked ‘home’ slowly, learned a few minutes before maariv, davened, changed our diaper, took a bath, put on jammies, got our nightly dose, and went to sleep with a bottle of formula.
Half an hour later she kvetched and sat up.
I helped her lie bck down, gave her her shmire, and ran to the nurses station for 5cc of the good stuff. I learned my lesson well.
Fool me once - shame on you; fool me twice, well… It’ll probably happen again then.
She’s sleeping soundly and so should I be. Good night - thanks for your concern and your tefillos. And thanks to the people who went shopping for us today - (you know who you are!)

What a party!
What a big boy!
Thank you to all the family and friends who came and for picking up the slack so we could carry on the upshearin for Binyamin as we promised him.
And thank you Ariana for taking care of the girls all day - and thank you Michal for taking care of Ilana so we could both enjoy the upshearin.

Sunday - what a crazy day!
last night, i left at 930 to go get the kids from the moshav.
I wound up leaving shira and leora (who was sleeping anyway) for the night - they were to take a bus with cousins avigayil and ariana @ 145 to rbs.
i took yehoshua, ariel, and a sleeping binyamin back home with me. I dropped off ariel - checked on yaeli who was asleep at his house, and went home to put the boys in bed and unpack.
Got up at 7, showered, made lunch for yehoshua and left two bowls of cereal (without milk) ready in case the boys woke up before i got back from shacharis.
Of course they woke up and called in the middle of shemona esrei! And just when i had decided i was going to try and increase my kavana!
I got home to find yehoshua blowing up balloons and making signs for binyamin’s bday/upshearn party.
When Binyamin woke up, his first words to me were ‘is ilana home?’
dropped of yehoshua @ camp, took clothes to yaeli, took yaeli and binyamin and elisheva to rabbi geisler and rabbi langsam for a snippety snip and a bracha. He was not pleased to see bearded men coming at him with sharp scissors…
Then we went to visit Ilana at the hospital.

Her fever’s down, we hope for good. The swelling in her ankle is not any worse than yesterday, but she still refuses to put ANY weight on her left foot.
the doctors won’t let her out with an ‘infusia’(iv) in the neck (they couldnt find veins in the hand or arm) - so i went home to drop off binyamin @ maon, the girls @ leff and then finish shopping and start preping for the party.
Tamar waited for michal to come bbysit @ 3 and then taxi-ed home.
Hoping tomorrow will be more improvement, and are shooting to get oral antibiotics before week’s end so we can go home.
please keep davening for Ilana esther bas tamar ahuva