I remember hearing this story when I was a little girl and cheering for that little engine to keep going, that he was so close and to not give up. I was so excited for him when he made it to the top of that mountain and felt a sense of relief and accomplishment along with him as he made his decent down the hill knowing that he had conquered something hard and never gave up.
I think this little engine is in each one of us, but we have to choose to listen to his chant of encouragement and decide which mountains we have to climb.
As I have said in my last post, this year has been tough on my family. After Geoff read my last post, he looked at me and said, "You didn't mention everything about James." I decided I could only handle little chunks at a time when putting my thoughts out there, sharing scary things that have been going on in our lives with our loved ones. Thankfully, everyone in our family is healthy, for the moment, however we still have our "climbs" as we all have to experience in life.
Unfortunately, James's "climb" is one we have been chugging on for a little over a year now. Long, long story short, James was sick ALL the time from about 3 months until age 1. We were in the pediatricians office at least once a week, no exaggeration! James always had a runny nose that would turn into an ear infection followed by Strep Throat. So, we go to the ENT, because of course we have one from Michael, and he recommends tubes...done! So easy, we've done that before with Michael, no big deal. Then the Strep continues and coughs, sinus infections, etc. I finally decided enough is enough- it is not NORMAL for your baby to be sick this often and our Pediatrician, who I did love, was obviously too busy to take notice or take me seriously. Luckily, a very good friend of mine recommended her Pediatrician and we made the switch. Hands down best decision we have ever made for our boys. Dr O is amazing and attentive and calls me on my phone to talk about the boys and follow up! Anyway, we move doctors, she wants to give him a month to check him out, see whats going on and then orders lab work because she agreed it was not "normal" to be sick this often. Dr O definitely did not see James's results coming when they indicated he has immunodifficency! James is a TANK! He is a big boy and a big eater and immunodeficient kids are not "usually" big babies. But that is what his lab work showed so at least we had a reason for his illnesses.
The afternoon, last April, when Dr O called me was life changing. My little engine derailed briefly as she told me what his lab results showed and told me I needed to get James to an Immunologist asap. Luckily, Geoff is amazingly calm in situations like these and helped me get "back on track", pull it together and figure out what we needed to do for James. We made an appointment with an Immunologist for James, started treatment (antibiotic everyday) and had to get more bloodwork- which is the most horrificly, awful, horrible thing in the world:( I of course ended up switching Immunologists, I just didn't have a great feel from the him, and are with an Immunologist who is very black and white, no nonsense and straight-on. This is what we needed.
This Immunologist believed James had an "immature" immune system and he was very hopeful that he would grow out of this by the age of 2. However, we needed to take James back to his ENT and have his tonsils and adenoids removed. By the age of 16 months, James had tubes placed, adenoids removed and then tonsils and adenoids removed (adenoids grow back, did you know that?)
That brings us up to James' 2nd birthday. We went in for lab work, we were so confident he was going to be great! James had not been sick since his tonsils and adenoids were removed! He was great! Then, his Immunologist sends us the results....his levels DROPPED lower than his initial numbers:( He is not absorbing his vaccinations and will need to get boosters for his past vaccinations in addition to new ones. Kick to the gut and thrown off track again. BUT, the positive is he has not been sick and the antibiotic is doing its job.
Four weeks after his boosters, we went in for MORE blookwork and to see how his body was responding to his recent vaccinations...results:
"The response to vaccine was vigorous which is very encouraging. The abnormal values in the CBC suggest that allergy will be important but there are no other problems with the CBC and clotting cells are normal. The bruising is a function of age, not a medical problem."
So, we will just keep chugging along......
No comments:
Post a Comment