When a child lost his beloved Stinky Monkey, a UK employee went to great lengths to make it better

For all of his three and a half years, Ezra Yost has had a constant companion: a stuffed brown monkey with a blanket for a body.

Stinky Monkey, as he came to be known, went everywhere Ezra did.

That is, until late July, when Stinky Monkey got left behind while the Yost family, of Indianapolis was visiting Lexington.

The original Stinky Monkey with matted fur and a mouth worn off by too much love remains at large.

But a dedicated University of Kentucky employee whose heart was moved by the Yost family’s predicament went to great lengths last week to give Ezra an exact replica of his beloved pal.

“It’s just incredible that they did this for him,” Ezra’s mom, Emily Yost, said in an interview Saturday.

Yost said the family had come to Lexington so that Ezra’s baby brother, Arlo, could have surgery at Kentucky Children’s Hospital, an amputation made necessary by a congenital condition.

While Arlo was in surgery, Ezra and his grandparents spent hours in the waiting room and walking the halls at the University of Kentucky Chandler Medical Center. The family spent the night in a Lexington hotel and then traveled back to Indianapolis the following day.

It was on the drive back home that Yost and her husband realized that Stinky Monkey was missing.

“We don’t know what happened to him,” Yost said. “I literally called everywhere that we could.”

When that didn’t work, she posted on WKYT’s Facebook page, asking people to keep an eye out for the much-loved toy with “Ezra” embroidered on it.

“He won’t sleep and hasn’t stopped crying since,” she wrote.

The post eventually made its way to Daun Wickline, who manages the medical center’s four gift shops.

Wickline, who has worked at UK for 40 years, said her first response was, “the poor little thing.”

“I recognized the monkey,” she said. “I carry that brand in the shop.”

After calling around to multiple hospital departments with no luck finding Ezra’s monkey, she called the company that makes the dolls, only to be told that the product had been discontinued.

So Wickline began searching elsewhere online and found a company in Georgia that happened to have two monkeys just like Stinky still in stock. And on top of that, they did monogramming.

Wickline had Ezra’s name embroidered on the new monkey just like it had been on the old one and asked the company to overnight it to the Yosts’ address.

But then a new problem occurred to her.

“I thought, wait a minute, but it’s going to be new. He’s going to know that’s not the same one,” Wickline said.

So Wickline and her co-workers hatched a plan to overcome that obstacle too.

Dr. Erich Maul, chief of the Division of Hospital Pediatrics at UK, was enlisted to make a short video that was sent to Ezra, explaining that his monkey had been in the hospital “getting all spiffed up” before coming back home.

Behind him was a big photo of a hospital bed with none other than Stinky Monkey Photoshopped into it.

Wickline said Yost told her that Ezra watched the video again and again while waiting for his monkey to arrive the next day.

Yost said in a Facebook post that she was “overwhelmed.”

“It makes me feel like I’m not a complete failure for not focusing on Ezra and his monk a bit more during our stay,” she wrote.

That’s what Wickline was hoping for.

“That’s part of what broke my heart,” she said. “I’m a mama. I’m a granny too. ... She’s got the stress of what’s going on with the baby. I was just like, what can I do ... that might help.”

Yost said she and her husband researched several hospitals throughout the country before settling on UK for Arlo’s treatment.

“We chose UK because the people there are just so kind and real,” she said. “It was just incredible.”

She said she’s hoping to meet Wickline for the first time in five weeks, when Arlo returns for a checkup.

Meanwhile, Ezra is happy to have Stinky Monkey back “just like brand new,” Yost said.

She sent Wickline videos showing him opening the package and squealing with joy.

Wickline said she and her husband pray before she leaves for work every morning “that we would be a positive or a blessing” to someone that day.

“If you can make a difference, it’s what it’s all about,” she said.