Mia's Liver vs the Doctors

Today we had Mia's 1st appointment with the Pediatric GI Specialist, and we learned the following things:

1. Contrary to what we were told at the hospital, an allergic reaction can cause liver issues. The GI specialist told us it can even cause liver failure. The Dr @ the hospital had told us that there was no way her high levels could be related. She seemed to think they were too high to be correlated. So good news and bad news. A-hopefully her high levels are incident related and will come back to normal. B-she didn't eat very many nuts. Greg guesses 2 or 3 at most. If we get our wish and her levels are just related to the allergic reaction, we will pretty much have to put ourselves on high alert, 24/7, which is tough, especially with a toddler.

2. Apparently Mia's levels were remarkably high. At our appointment we had another Dr come in and say hello, and she greeted Mimi as "our little medical mystery" and said that her levels were "impressive". Well, I guess that all depends on your perspective huh?

3. Her issue is still a bit of a mystery. While elevated levels can be a number of things, celiac disease, hepatitis, etc. it is unlikely that it is any of those since she doesn't have many other symptoms, and she is appearing healthy on many other levels. Right now, her only symptoms are the elevated liver function test levels, and an on going rash. Dr also seemed to think that we could be continuing to expose her to something that her body is treating as toxic, since she has an on going rash.

She actually tolerated the Dr and let him examine her, which is a huge change. She usually goes a little nuts as soon as we walk in. And while she does know what is going on to a certain extent, she did pretty well. As soon as they call her in, she starts asking "hurt? hurt?" which is heart breaking, but luckily she didn't freak today. I have started asking whoever we are going to see to not wear their lab/white coats into the exam room, and it seems to be working so far. She even let them weigh and measure her. At 22 months, she is 36 inches tall and weighs 37 lbs.

During the physical exam, the Dr thought that he could feel her liver, but said that could be normal, or it could still be inflammed.

Our next step is an ultrasound this Friday am. No food or drink for Mimi for the 4 hours prior to the ultrasound will be absolutely delightful, but what are you going to do?

After the ultrasound, then we will have more blood work done in about 6 weeks, they are going to review her enzyme levels again, and also test for a variety of other possibilities, and then a follow up with the GI Specialist.

As long as we make it thru the ultrasound and they don't discover a tumor or any major liver damage, we are in good shape, so for now we are holding our breath and crossing our fingers for that. Hopefully since our appointment is in the morning, the Dr will be able to review the results that afternoon and not make us suffer thru the weekend.

Thanks again to everyone for all of your support. We will be so relieved once this is over. Every time she says she has a stomach ache I get the chills and try not to freak out. It will be nice to get back to normal life and just worry about all the normal things!

xoxo,
Christine