Testing, one two three

Lots of tests for Kellan to come.

Maybe I've gotten to the point where I am a nervous nelly over Kellan, or maybe the Lord is just moving me in a peculiar direction in answering my prayers for understanding and answers to helping Kellan, I don't know. But this week, a friend's daughter was observed for Kawasaki disease, thankfully it turned out not to be what she had afterall. But I wondered "what's that?" so I looked up a lot of info about it, and as I sat reading some things, it led me to think "This sounds like Kellan!" (his last illness of the walking pnemonia, and the process the entire illness took.) So I read for several hours that night feeling like I had some direction to go in.

I called the pediatrician's office the next morning to talk to them about coming in for a check up, one of the things with Kawasaki Disease is that it is inflammatory, and it causes blood vessels to dialate- especially the heart. It can cause heart damage. It can also be an indication of an inflammatory disease liklihood for the child. Children under 5 don't manifest every symptom, they need only to manifest 3 out of 12, he had almost all of them.

So we went in this morning for the beginning of several tests. Heart sounds fine, no irregular patterns or rapid beat, so the likelihood of heart damage is minimal. The Doc isn't as concerned about Kawasaki disease today though as she is other things. If it was or wasn't isn't the issue- he's over it anyway. It's the aftermath we are dealing with now. And he did react with indications of an inflammatory disease of some kind. So atleast it got me on a path of figuring SOMETHING out now.

She is concerned that it may be juvenile rheumetoid arthritis (RA) or Lupus. Even Celiac's disease. (Allergy to wheat) So they drew some blood to run a whole slew of things like the rheumetoid factors, celiac antibodies, various viruses that attack the joints and bowels. All we know today is that his white blood cell count is up. We'll know some more friday and next week when it all comes back in.

He has an appointment in July for an EKG to check his heart vitality to make sure no damage has occured or settled in. With Kawasaki disease it can take 5-6 weeks for the blood vessles to return to normal size and function, his illness ended 2 weeks ago. So to learn anything today wouldn't do much good, there is no protocol. We go in July for that to make sure there is no damage that may make him prone to heart disease. So far there is no indication of his heart being affected, just his inflammatory response instead.

So while it may seem like an odd way of going about answering prayers, I'm thankful that Tiffany's child had that experience even if it was wrongly suspected, to make me question "What is that?" Because it's giving us some answers now about our Kellan.

So if the Lord is hearing my prayer, I hope he hears the many of returning my boy back to the healthy tank he used to be, and I hope this is the right direction.