Medical update

Well we are just getting into the new diet for Jess and getting ready to test Kody for Celiac Disease along with myself. Here is a picture of Jess right after her endoscopy where they looked in her stomach and did the biopsies that found the Celiac Disease. I had the blood work done and had one of the test come back positive and one negative so my prize is a trip the GI specialist to have a consult and then most likely I get to swallow a camera. I am going to have Kody's blood on Monday and that is promising to be a hoot! We will see what his blood work shows before we go any further with his diagnosis. The problem is that Jessy's blood work came back completely negative so we are not real convinced that Kody's blood work is going to show anything either. While we are dealing with this we also had a routine EKG on Jess. I know you are thinking that a routine EKG on a kid, how does that work? But she is on ADHD medications and the National Heart Association (sp) wants baseline EKGs on all persons that are taking a stimulant. I don't think it is to see if the drugs are causing damage but to rule out any abnormalities that might be there before they have complications with the drugs. Clear as mud? Well, that routine EKG did show an abnormality and won us a trip to the Children's Hospital in SLC. The hospital did another EKG to make sure that the first one was correct and will have a "rythmtist" (sp) read it on Monday. The computer that doest the EKG is calibrated to spit out a "loose" diagnosis and both the one at the hospital and the one in the doctor's office said the same "Long QT abnormality". The only difference is that one in the hospital did say it was "borderline". I went online and read what a "Long QT Syndrome" is and it is not pretty. The heart is not recovering fast enough between beats. What that causes internally I am not real sure at this point but it is a common reason for sudden death among young people. Her Pediatrician looked but the medication that she is on and it has no documented cases of this and is actually good for this particular problem. The medication actually speeds up the heart a little and helps the heart recover a little faster. The degree of seriousness in Jess's particular situation will determine what has to happen to correct the problem and make it safe for her again. So while we wait to hear from the Cardiologist on what we are to do next Jess is off all sports and PE. She had to miss her soccer game this morning and was really bummed about that. She is not particularly sad about not having to run the mile anymore at school but would take that so she could play soccer again. She has been a real trooper in all of this!