January 28, 2009

Sadie has been doing really well. The doctors decided that she needed to remain on the Acyclovir (anti-viral) as long as she is in on any kind of immune suppressing medications. All her joints look good and for the most part she has been feeling great. She is also continuing to do Remicade every six weeks rather than every four.

Three weeks ago today I picked her up from school and she was limping worse than I have seen in a long time. She was in a ton of pain and told me “something just happened and now it hurts to walk on it”. We iced her ankle that night and in the morning she was about the same. After several calls we made an appointment with Rheumatology; they did an x-ray and looked over her. Without her normal rheumatologist in town, the only options they gave us were steroid injections or oral steroids. We opted for neither and to wait until her normal doctor returned. Sadie stayed about the same over that weekend and the following week we were contacted by her regular rheumatologist who scheduled her to have an MRI and later come to find out she also scheduled us to see Sadie’s orthopedic doctor (and doc who preformed her surgery Nov 07). Those appointments were today.

In the last few days I have been conflicted because often Sadie seems to be doing better however the swelling was still very present and about 2-5 times a day she would step on her foot wrong and it would cause a shooting pain up her leg. She also seemed to be increasingly sore at the end of the day and had a hard time with stairs. With those things I decided to proceed with today and I am glad we did. When we saw her orthopedic doctor he went over the symptoms with Sadie (he is awesome about talking to her directly about how she feels rather than seeking answers from me) and then he told us that he had all ready reviewed her MRI and there seemed to be a lot of inflammation in her bone rather the joint which means whatever was going on was NOT arthritis. After looking together at the MRI he went over old x-rays and the ones done when we went and saw rheumatology and the conclusion was made that she has fractured her ankle bone. This would explain the shooting pain if she stepped wrong and also would explain that after walking on a fractured bone all day why it would be increasingly sore at the end of the day. Since it has been three weeks since she injured it, the doctor decided we should only do a walking cast for 3 weeks and then take it off. We will talk with them after we take it off and let them know if she is having any more “shooting” pain. Then we go back to see him in six weeks from today and re-do x-rays.

This actually was probably good news… there were a lot of other things that this could have been and/or we could have been back to square one of “not sure how to help you –want steroids?”. So, I am grateful. There are still questions about some issues with “floating objects” which we will address with orthopedics when we go back in March and there is also some question as to why this happened (especially since she is all ready in a hard brace every day), but for now… she will wear the walking boot and get well. We will address the rest later. Other then this issue she is doing really well (grew another .25 inches in six weeks) and feels good!!!! Yeah!As always, thank you for your continued care and concern for Sadie… she is a strong girl who handles all she endures with more grace then I imagine I could ever do! I appreciate your prayers and love!