So Here's the Scoop

I've been pretty absent on this thing (the blog), and that's partly been due to computer problems, partly because I am trying to do better at picking up the house at night (my blog time), but mostly because I've been trying to get a quickie medical degree online! Just kidding; I haven't officially gone back to school, but I have spent a huge amount of time reading medical articles. The reason is this: Katie has had three episodes of a terrible rash that spreads across her face and only goes away with oral steroids. She just had her third flare a couple of weeks ago. Apparantly three times is the magic number for the doctors to say that we need to get to the underlying cause. We have now seen three pediatricians, two dermatologists, an allergist and a rheumatologist, and nobody knows what's causing it. We've ruled out a lot of things, some of them bad things, and I thank the Lord each night for that, but we've yet to discover what's going on inside Katie. The plan is to get her better on steroids, then take her off the steroids hopefully for a few weeks minimum and then to let it flare again without treatment so that she can be seen at Mayo Clinic with the full blown rash. Right now she's fine. The rash is gone, she's finishing off with a steroid cream and trying hard to make up for missed days of school. We are somewhat suspicious of some metallic paint that we put on her furniture at the end of September (and thanks to my blog I knew just when we'd done that painting!!!), but there's no way to tell if that's it. She is negative on all allergies.

So that's the "scoop" around here; it's taken a big chunk out of life, but the good news is it's motivated me to streamline some things around here that needed it. Meanwhile Lily keeps everybody entertained. We were sitting in the rheumatologist's big exam room with Tim and I, Katie, and the doctor and her assistant, all of us looking intently up at Katie on the exam table and talking about her symptoms. All of a sudden the doctor sat back and said, "Is there something for the little girl (Lily of course) to do? Some toys or something?" I realized that I had been tuning it out completely, but Lily had been doing ballet leaps across the room trying to leap into everybody's lines of vision like playing keep away with a ball. That girl needs attention more than anybody I've ever met...and will do anything she has to to get it!