One Moment

So, my Aunt Sue, my daughter Emeline, and my son Jim, and I went to Portland yesterday. It was a really good trip. My mom let us borrow her car (it gets MUCH better gas mileage than my suburban (about 11-12 mpg), so THANKS MOM!!! It drives really well, for a small SUV :) I still LOVE my surburban, but her car was a good drive :)

I didn't know how long it would take to get there, so we left 4 hours early (Portland is about 3 1/2 hours away). Well, it only takes about 3 hours to get there. We were an hour early. But, they got us in, so we were done only 5 minutes after our appointment time - can't beat that!

Back in February, Eme had Strep. We went to the Dr to make sure, and then get some antibiotics. A few days after her 10 day course, I noticed that her hands and feet were swollen, and she said that the joints were painful. She has these daintly girl hands, and they looked like "Jacob" (my 11 year old) hands - LOL! I took her to urgent care that evening, since I'd never had a kid with symptoms like that. After checking her out, they thought that she might have some kind of arthritis.

They referred her to Childrens Hospital in Columbus OH, to a Pediatric Rhumetologist. We went up there, and they took blood samples, and did an EKG. We found out that she had Post Strep Reactive Arthritis. Apparently, sometimes after a person has strep, the body will have arthritis like symptoms after the strep is cleared up. She only had the symptoms for a few days, then they cleared up.

The doctors say that after a Post Strep Reactive Arthritis case, the best course is to treat with antibiotics for a year. It may help prevent the patient from getting worse problems with strep, affecting the heart. Rhumetic fever, or something like that. Anyway, she's on antibiotics for a year. She's 1/2 way through that now.

Since we moved from Ohio, she couldn't go back to Columbus for the 6 month follow up appointment. We got a new doctor in Portland for her to see. The Doctor was really good. I liked him - very personable and knowledgeable. He said that the jury was still out on wether to treat P.S.R.A with a course of antibiotics for a year, but it was still probably best to be safe than sorry. He said that we didn't need to come back again, though. Eme was fine, and perfectly healthy. We just stop taking the antibiotics in February. So, that's where we stand.

We drove 7 hours for a 30 mintue doctor appointment. Oh the things we do for our precious little ones :)

Ha! Remember last week, when I tried to give this away, and it didn't work? Well, it's up this week, and it's all good to go :) LOL! Click HERE to go to scraporchard to download the zip file, and don't forget, you need to be logged into the gallery to get the file :) Thanks!