Tuesday, July 9, 2013

MUSC Visit

We were able to get an appointment with MUSC pretty quickly, which was nice.  Chloe wasn’t all that excited to have all the attention on her, can’t say that I blame  her.  After getting her height, weight, temperature and blood pressure taken went and waited on the Dr.  We are lucky enough to have two Dr.s working on her case, Dr. Murray Passo and Dr. Laura Parks, Passo’s fellow, and we love them both.  They looked Chloe over and determined that she does have arthritis in her right knee and in her fourth toe on her left foot.  They call her type Oligoarticular Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis.  Which means that its in less than 5 joints (which is good).  She needed some blood work taken, which she did not like, to make sure all her blood count levels were good so she could receive a cortisone shot and fluid extraction from that knee. They wanted to do it at MUSC but we were able to talk them into letting us do it at the Children’s Hospital here.  We learned that she could outgrow this, 50% chance, but could also develop more joints.  There is no cure, just treatment of a joint once it becomes inflamed.  She will also have to have eye exams every few months since arthritis can effect the eyes without any symptoms.  We are very hopeful and optimistic that she will do well with the treatment plan we’ve started.  Thanks for the prayers for our Chloe, we know God has big plans for this sweet girl! 

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Monday, July 1, 2013

Chloe

About a month ago we started noticing Chloe was walking a little funny, almost like she a hurt her leg.  So I took her to the Dr. where they decided to x-ray her hip(make sure her growth plates were normal).  When that came back normal, they prescribed some ibuprofen to see if that would help with any inflammation/pain she was having.  After two weeks on that she still wasn’t improving so I took her back to the Dr.  That’s when we noticed that her right knee was almost double the size of her left.  Our Dr. didn’t feel that it was time for us to see an orthopedist and referred us to one.

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A couple of days later we were in the orthopedist office getting x-rays of her knee.  After reviewing the x-rays the orthopedist narrowed it down to a couple of options, one most likely being Juvenile Arthritis, yeah I didn’t know they could get it either.  To know further, she decided that Chloe needed an MRI on her knee to look into it further and confirm her suspicions.  They happen to have an opening the very next morning for one.  To say this was moving really fast is an understatement!  Sweet girl was exhausted from the Dr visit, bless her heart

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The next morning we showed up at the Children’s Hospital here in town.  They have some wonderful child life specialist that work there, we love Sally!  Chloe got to play with a baby doll and prepare her for her shots, just like what the nurses were going to do to her.  I had hope this would have helped with the shots when it was her time, but no, she screamed her face off!

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While she was back getting her MRI, our ped Dr came and visited and comforted us with explaining everything.  Thankfully Chloe wasn’t back there too long and she did so great.  Sweet girl had some good sleep!

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The next day we headed back out to her orthopedist and they confirmed that it was Juvenile Arthritis and that we needed to go see a specialist in Charleston at MUSC.  We weren’t really prepared for all of this, but I guess no one every really is when their child becomes sick.  I’m hopeful that MUSC has some answers for us and a treatment plan.  Apparently she’s in some pain, but you wouldn’t know it.  So proud of my brave girl!