Expect the Unexpected

Still smiling even though it's been a long day!

This week began normally, but has taken a few major twists and turns. As you might know, Hannah has eosinophilic disease. Hers presents in her esophagus, which means that when these white blood cells get out of control, they eat her esophagus. We've had it under control for over 2 years, but it seems the disease is rearing its ugly head once again. After 3 days of vomiting (just in the middle of the night, so we were suspicious pretty soon that it was acid reflux, a side effect of eosinophilia) she started having acute diarrhea. So off to the children's hospital we went, as she was looking dehydrated, lethargic, her eyes were slow to respond and they were puffy. It was seriously a breath of fresh air to have doctors know all about eosinophilic disease and not have to explain what it is! I can see why Primary Children's is ranked one of the top ten children's hospitals. Despite the unpleasantness of having to be there at all, the staff made it so bearable and showered Hannah with gifts and love. (she accepted the gifts cheerfully, but she's less willing to accept "love" from strangers.) :) In all we were there for 8 hours, mostly because she needed IV fluids and meds. They gave her IV Prevacid, an acid reducer, and Zophran, an anti-nausea med. You wouldn't believe the difference in her by the time we left! The blood test results show that her eosinophil count is double what it should be, so we will be going in to see a pediatric GI doctor hopefully within the week. She'll likely be having an endoscopy soon, and I'm not sure if they'll test her entire GI tract or just her esophagus. Steroids are usually the treatment, but for some reason antihistamines seem to help also. So, for the time being we are giving her Prevacid solutabs and liquid Zyrtec. When we are able to physically see the damage to her GI tract (on the endoscopy scan), then the doctors will decide whether she needs the steroid treatment. She will also be seeing an allergist within the week to test for more food and environmental allergies. (she's been through that twice before, hopefully she has forgotten!) :)

All that being said, thank you so much for your love and prayers. We know God is taking care of every detail in Hannah's life. She was very brave today. She immediately told Gramma that she didn't even cry when she got her IV. (which is amazing, because she had already had 2 pokes from blood draws!)