Thursday, January 23, 2014

Updates

We are back in Birmingham for a few days. Korban and Selah both had a check-up with the immunologist. (Selah has to be checked periodically for the same immune deficiency Korban has. Her immune levels were low the first time they checked and normal the second time so we are just keeping a check on it.) 

We were anxious to talk to the doctor about Korban because the nurses at the infusion clinic had mentioned to us recently that she was thinking about taking Korban off the infusions for a trial period this summer. While it would be great to not have to get the infusions every four weeks, we can always tell around week three when the infusion starts wearing off. He gets really tired and congested. So we were naturally concerned about what he would be like with no infusion. 

It had been a year since we had seen this doctor and there were some good things to report. Both kids have done so well with their asthma this winter. Korban especially has come such a long way. All those middle of the night ER visits for the really bad asthma attacks were so scary!

We discussed Korban's infusions first. She explained to us that some people "grow out of" the immune deficiency he has (it's called hypogammaglobulanemia) and some people have to take treatments for the rest of their lives. You can't really tell until you stop the infusions for a couple of months to see. But considering what we were telling her about how he feels the week prior to his infusion she decided to give him another year on infusions and then try for a break next summer when he is older. She also wound up increasing his dose a little but to see if that would help. 

We talked about how hard it is to hold him for the nurses to get the IV in and how upset he gets. She prescribed a small dose of a medicine to help him calm down and relax prior to his infusion. It's like what some people get before they go to the dentist or whatever. His infusion is in the morning, so please pray this helps!

I figured Selah would need bloodwork, but the doctor actually said since hers was good last time we would hold off on that for awhile. So that was good. We talked about Selah being sick a good bit lately and see seemed to think that was due to her starting at head start and being exposed to more germs. 

We discussed allergy testing for both kids. Skin tests are generally the best but we all thought that would be too tough with Korban. They are going to draw blood tomorrow during his infusion and he won't even know it. Selah, however, had the skin test. She was nervous about it right before they started and Brad had to take Korban out because he was screaming much worse than Selah. She did fine with the actual test. Worrying about something is usually worse than actually doing it!

This is what her back looked like afterwards: 
I was really worried about that big spot on the bottom--I just knew it was going to be pet dander, since she loves animals so much. We would be destined to a home full of frogs and lizards!  Ha!  Fortunately it wasn't. That big spot is actually a control spot of histamine and it was good that she had a response to it. She didn't test positive for any of the environmental allergens they tested for. Big sigh of relief!

Here she is waiting for the doctor to come in and check her back. She was very happy with the stickers they gave her!  

So we are done with that appointment and feel that it went well. The kids see her again in six months. After we left there we went to fill Korban's prescription and pick up a big blessing for our family. 

When we got to the Ronald McDonald House late last night there were fliers up everywhere saying that the circus was in town and they had ticket vouchers.  I picked up our vouchers this morning and we just redeemed them for tickets to the 7:00 show tonight. 

The kids are going to be blown away. I can't wait to see their faces!  Just pray that Korban's anxiety doesn't flare up and cause problems. He's been wanting to go to the circus for ages. He's walking around right now saying "Ladies and gentlemen...boys and girls of all ages!" Makes me smile. Also, might also need to say a prayer Selah doesn't try to make off with one of their elephants. Even though she's probably not allergic to them, I'm pretty sure we don't have room for an elephant. ;)