Briana DeJesus, 24, deals with a mother’s worst nightmare in the Feb. 18 episode of Teen Mom 2: her child getting sick. “A few days ago I noticed Stella was having trouble moving her arm, so I took her to the hospital,” Stella says in the sneak peek clip below. Sadly, the MTV star reveals her one-year-old daughter, Stella, had a “serious bacterial infection” that required “an emergency surgery.” Specifically, Stella had septic arthritis in her joint and shoulder, which Briana’s mom, Roxanne,reveals in a phone call with Briana’s sister Brittany afterwards. By then the surgery is complete, but Stella still has to stay in the hospital for a “few days,” and perhaps even be on antibiotics for “a month or two.”
Stella’s older sister Nova, 7, is upset, and asks her grandma how much longer her baby sister will stay in the hospital. Our hearts broke. You can watch the full clip for the next Teen Mom 2 episode below! Thankfully, the surgery turned out to be a success…but the situation could’ve turned out much differently. The episode was actually taped in Aug. 2018, and Briana explained what led up to the sudden hospitalization. “Stella was sick a week prior with a fever of 104,” the reality television star told Us Weekly after the surgery. Upon noticing that Stella had issues with moving her arm, Briana “thought maybe she had an accident at daycare.”
As for how the baby developed septic arthritis, “the doctor said nobody really knows how one gets it,” but Briana told the outlet that “a simple bug bite or scratch can open up flesh and bacteria can travel.” Learning that surgery was necessary made Stella break down “in tears,” and the whole ordeal was traumatizing — “She was under sedation for four hours and I couldn’t do anything but just wait.” Luckily, Briana’s a great mom and brought her baby to the professionals, “as the infection could have grown and entered her bloodstream and she could have become extremely sick…she could have possibly died,” Briana revealed. So scary.