The scare

Fever. Two weekends in a row.

Louis had some low-grade fever the previous weekend when we celebrated Faith's birthday. We saw the doctor and the latter was not concerned as his injured knee looked alright.

The last weekend, he again had fever. This time around, the fever was much higher - the highest at 38.8C. Again, it didn't abate much even with medications. His left knee swelled quite considerably, looking like a little round ball, giving us cause for concern.

We made an appointment to see his doctor again yesterday. The doctor said that there was some fluid that might caused the swelling. He drew a vial of liquid from the knee -- which was yellowish looking -- and also another small vial of blood. Both vials of fluid were sent for analysis.

The doctor was certain that there was no pus in the fluid that he drew out from the knee. A lab analysis was ordered to determine if there were any micro-organisms found in the fluid from the knee. If there was, Louis would knee to go for another minor surgery to clean the knee.

In the meantime, he was prescribed antibiotics, paracetamol and arcoxial to bring down the swell and we were told to return the next day for a review based on the lab results. The medicine helped considerably. After 2 dosage of it yesterday, the fever went down. This morning, the swelling on his knee went down slightly.

The results this morning when we saw the doctor was a big relief. There wasn't any bacterial or micro-organisms found in the liquid. The blood test result came out alright too, other than the fact that Louis is a little anemic, which he has always been.

He now has to complete the cause of antibiotics and arcoxial. Hopefully, that would help to bring the swelling of the knee back to what it was previously. If there is still any swelling, I gather the doctor will draw out any excess fluid through the syringe.

Whatever it is, this is definitely a much better option than if there were micro-organisms found in his knee, which would require another surgery. Needless to say, after going through all the pain, current ongoing physiotherapy and exercise regime in order to be able to walk with one crutch, Louis is concerned that any surgery would put him back to the state where he was after the knee surgery.

It has been a rather long, arduous, slow and somewhat draining period for him since late December last year. There's a lot of hard work that he needs to put in consistently just to yield a modicum of progress. I guess he's got a lot of self-inflicted pressure to recover as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for the case of a knee injury, my personal sense is that a lot of time and patience is required, especially with the extent of injury he had sustained.

For the last 2 days, the fever and his swollen knee had pretty much zapped him of his energy that he had to rely on using 2 crutches to get around. Thankfully after the start of the antibiotics course, he's now back to using one crutch.

We'll be seeing the doctor again next week for a review. Keeping our fingers crossed that everything will be alright from now on.