Thursday, May 18, 2006

Medical update (on me and Cassidy)

Ok, this will be long and I hope it makes sense. I am tired.

Cassidy was not running a fever by the time we got to the peds, which is great, but her lips were dry and she looks horribly ill. The ped said her ear doesn't look near as bad as the chart indicated it was on Tuesday, so she thinks the antibiotic is starting to work. They tested her blood sugar because of how bad she is shaking and it is fine. The urine looked fine and did not seem to indicate that she was dehydrated as of yesterday. She is starting to not urinate as much though so we have to now start watching for the dehydration.

If she has a fever tomorrow then we have lab orders for blood work and a chest x-ray and then we will go in on Saturday to the peds. She will likely have her antibiotic changed if that is the case, but we may have to hydrate her with IVs if she is getting worse...so she is still ok hydration wise for right now. Whew!

We had my appointment to go over all of my results from bloodwork I had drawn and my thyroid ultrasound since my appointment last month. I will tell you about those results in a minute. Once we got home (well after 5pm), Cassie's fever went up. It reached 103.7, so I have a feeling we will definitely be heading out tomorrow morning for those labs. :(

My appointment wasn't too great, but we have a plan somewhat in place. I am pre-diabetic, my cholesterol is really high (total and LDL) and my blood pressure was up, so I am on a strict diet for now. Fresh and frozen only still and then in a month I will go back to be retested and have an even stricter diet given to me. If my cholesterol isn't improved a bit they will likely put me on meds for it.

My thyroid tests all came back fine, but my thyroid ultrasound came back showing that I have 2 nodules and a goiter (knew about the goiter but not the nodules). He thinks I likely have Hashimoto's Disease, which my mother has. They recommend I have the ultrasound repeated in 6 months. Yikes! I'm still a little confused about how you have a goiter with nodules and yet have your multiple thyroid tests come back ok. Unless his theory is correct (see below).

He ordered another test, but my lovely lab decided to do some totally different test. It came back with abnormal results and he has no idea what the test even looks for. That kind of scares me. He was thinking I have a thyroid autoimmune problem, but he isn't real sure. I don't like the fact that something came back in an abnormal range and we don't know what it is. I mentioned about being tested for scleroderma as a kid and that the results came back as inconclusive and he said it may very well have something to do with that but again he isn't sure.

If anyone knows what a weak positive for the "Actin (smooth muscle) Antibody" test might mean, please feel free to let me know so I don't have to sit here pondering what the heck is going on. ;)

Anyway, it all boils down to the fact that I have multiple problems so he is sending me to see my mother's endocrinologist. She said he used to do internal medicine as well as endocrinology, so I think he is bound to get me fixed up.

It seems like there was something else, but I am blanking now. Hopefully Cassie will wake up fever free tomorrow. She is feeling pretty warm right now, so I guess we will see. Thanks for thinking of us. I'll keep you posted. I have a feeling it will be another long day of testing tomorrow. I hate that she is sick like this. :(

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi there, just got a minute to check in and see how you two are doing. Did you search google for that antibody thingy? Maybe you can find something there to help. I am still keeping ya'll in my thoughts and prayers. Take care, Kim.

Melissa said...

Thank you, Kim! I did look through google, but came up with a lot of stuff on mice and rabbits. LOL I did find one site that says a bunch of stuff about hepatitis, another that mentions mono, and one more that said something about Celiac Disease. We had my boys get some bloodwork for Celiac at the beginning of the year, so I know just a little bit about it, and it could very well be what it is, but bloodwork isn't really a determiner for it from my understanding. I'm trying not to stress over it since the doctor wasn't concerned about it. Boy, is that hard! Hopefully the endo can shed some light. :)