Monday Update

So after not sleeping very well last night due to much internet-induced-anxiety compounded by my mind running away with itself, I was up early and was able to get E an appointment this morning at the pediatrician's office (with a different doctor than this past Saturday -or- our regular pediatrician since she was out). Luckily I ran into our regular nurse and felt a bit better. She found that we did get our blood work/lab results back from last week.

Dr Smith came in and I explained about the swelling and bruising on E's foot, the new spots on her legs, the puffiness again under the one eye and her low grade fever. AND I did tell him that I did the no-no and was searching symptoms/diagnoses online last night and "freaked" myself out. I told him I was concerned that she had leukemia. Many of the signs/symptoms were similar to what I was seeing with her. He looked at all the blood work that was run twice last week, as well as, did a thorough exam on her and came to the same conclusion as the other two doctors, that what she has is a virus compounded by an allergic reaction to something. He has diagnosed leukemia in the past and said she doesn't present with the symptoms you see with that disease, nor does the blood work support that diagnosis either. I was concerned because of the bruising happening without any injury to the area, but he said that a virus could cause that, which I thought didn't. He was thorough in examining all of her joints and checking out at the spots on her legs. He ruled out any rheumatoid diseases as well. He put us back on Zyrtec and Motrin to help with the swelling. I also asked him if he thought we should run the lab work again, and he said no, that the way she looks today after his assessment, he didn't believe it was called for.

And then we went over the lab results from the allergy testing. There were lots of items that came in at the "out of range" level: Maple, birch, oak, elm, hickory/pecan trees; bermuda, timothy, bahia grasses; common ragweed, rough pigweed, sheep sorrel, nettle; egg white, peanut, wheat, soybean, corn, and sesame seed. WHEW! He has referred us back to see our allergist for skin testing. He said the skin testing is much more sensitive than this blood work and that just because it shows a high level in the blood, it may not necessarily need to be omitted from the diet. If it did show on the skin test however, then we would want to remove it from the diet. So we have an appointment for a consultation with Dr Anderson this Wednesday afternoon.

And to make Miss E's day, Dr Smith told her that she could return to school today! She was thrilled to say the least so I took her in and volunteered in their classroom for the remainder of the day. We are very happy to hopefully be on the mend....though my mind has occasionally reverted back to...what if they are wrong? YIKES! I am not going there....I need some rest! And I am going to take solace knowing that I have gotten three opinions from three different doctors with the same conclusion. BUT if something else pops up, I'll be heading back, Lord help me...I'd rather NOT see the pediatrician's office anytime soon!!!