Changes

It amazes me how fast circumstances in your life can change. It's been crazy busy here since school started a couple of weeks ago. I was looking forward to the long weekend for Labor Day. I was heading to my aunt's house to spend the day with some of the kids while Andy stayed home with Alex & Connor who both had to work. It was a beautiful day for a get together...hung out with Sherri and her family, my parents and Von and family. Kids all played together great...had wonderful food. We came home with van full of Littlest Pet Shop toys that Sherri was trying to clear out of her house. Little did I know then how those toys would come in handy a few days later. On Monday Keari woke up complaining about her right leg bothering her. We couldn't see anything and by later that day she was running around on it. By the time she went to bed she had a slight limp and her knee was very slightly swollen. She woke up Tuesday morning still complaining about it and by mid day her knee was very swollen and she was having pain in her left hip. Andy made trip with her to urgent care for x-rays and blood work. They saw lots of fluid on the x-ray and her WBC was elevated. They suspected late stage lyme disease, although we'd never seen a tick or a rash on her. They sent her blood work off to get tested which has a 3-5 day turnaround. By this point Keari can no longer walk because the pain is so bad. Wednesday we get a call from the urgent care doc saying that she'd been thinking about Keari all night and that we should take her to see an orthopedic doc for the swelling in case it needs to be drained. She walked a referral over to the drs office and within 15 minutes they were calling us with an appt time. Andy, Kenzie and Keari head over the ortho's office an hour later where he proceeds to do a fluid draw from her knee. After taking one look at the fluid color, he says she needs to get the hospital right away. At his point he was very worried that she had a bacterial infection that could be eating away her bones. So Andy and I switch places and I head to the hospital with Keari and Kenzie. They were expecting her but it still took time to get everything in place to get all the tests done. Keari is such a little thing that she totally surprised the nurses with how strong she was when they were trying to put her IV in. They had to do it twice before they got it to stay. So heartbreaking to hear your little saying stop stop stop and know that they have to continue to hurt her because it's the only way to get her better. The tests results were back but the hospital dr wanted to start her on two iv meds...one that was a broad spectrum bacterial med and one that covered lyme. At this point, she was thinking it was not lyme because of how high Keari's WBC was but she wanted to cover all bases. They also put her on around the clock motrin to help with the inflammation. At 10pm they finally got all the meds hooked up although Keari did like one of those because it burned a little going in. After a restless night due to pain and the nurses coming in to take stats, she finally fell into a deep sleep around 4am. She woke around 8 having to go potty which is an adventure for somebody that can't walk or stand. After she'd gone, she looked at me and said that she thought she could stand. She was sooo excited when she actually could. Then she told me she could walk back to her bed...and she did that too albeit with very noticeable limps. Her knees were still swollen but she was able to bear weight on them again. Around midmorning a dr came in and said that test results came back and she was diagnosed with Lyme Arthritis. This is late stage lyme which is well after she would have gotten the tick bite or the rash...neither of which we ever saw on her. She's actually very lucky, one in that it was not a more serious bacterial infection because lyme is easily treatable (she'll be on meds for the next month), and two that her only symptom is the arthritis...she could have had heart problems and/or nervous system problems when a diagnosis is made this late. She scared us to death but to look at her now you would never know that anything is wrong with her...she's running around like a crazy person and has been ever since getting from the hospital Thursday afternoon. What bothers me is that she never showed any of the classic signs of lyme...no tick, no rash, she wasn't tired...she was climbing trees the day before all this started. The rapid progression of this disease is just mind boggling...climbing trees one day, unable to walk the next. And I'm left wondering how we could have prevented things from getting this far for her.