The Numbers

Today I took Ricky to Dr. T b/c he was under the weather. Dr. T's diagnosis was another virus with a wonderful viral rash which broke out all over his torso this morning. So we continue on Biaxin until Friday and return to Dr T next Thur. First he had a virus, than a couple infections and now we are full circle at another virus. When will it end?

Excuse me if I don't make sense but I have a massive migraine tonight. While we were at Dr. T's we reviewed Ricky's latest immune numbers. The blood work was definitely full of surprises. The IgA info had not really changed. Ricky has a minuscule amount of IgA which does nothing. Basically, we should just say it is 0 b/c it is so small. Then there is the IgG. Now when we first tested him, his IgG was off a bit but Dr T did not think it was anything to worry about. He was young (approx 17 months) so he wanted to give his immune system time to mature. Today we found out that those numbers took a nose dive. His IgG numbers are significantly off and that is not good news.

To explain a bit more - both kids are missing there IgA antibodies. And now both have the right amount of IgG but they are not functioning properly. The analogy I like is all the parts of the machine are there but it just is not working right. So the bottom line is that Maggie and Ricky have one major part of their immune system missing and another not working.

So what do we do about this issue you ask? We re-immunize! Maggie was re-immunized once and most likely it will have to be done again. Ricky's pediatrician will do it so all shots are done in one appointment. Then we wait 3 weeks and do more blood work. If Dr T sees no improvement we re-immunize again, wait 3 weeks and blood work. If it is not working and Ricky is still getting sick we reconvene to discuss options. One option is prophylactic antibiotics which he would take as a precaution every day. All overwhelming so we will stick with just doing the 1st round of the re-immunizations. We are also doing blood work that could possible put us into a new diagnosis (Maggie will do hers her next blood work).

I am disappointed, disheartened, overwhelmed and exhausted. Once this migraine is gone and I have gotten some sleep I will be better able to process the info. For now I just say a prayer, kiss my babies, have confidence in Dr T and faith in God.