beacuse I believe in the power of prayer.. i need your help

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers, they have certainly worked!

Ethan came home this afternoon around 4pm. He has quite a few follow-up consults with specialists and it will only be then do we know his true diagnosis. Right now he definetly has an iron deficiency (which we knew) they ruled out PIDD which is fantastic news.. the subclass deficiencies also came back negative which is great.

They are moving onto some kind of inflammatory bowel disease (crohns or ulcerative colitis) we will be a bit closer to knowing during our follow up when we get the results in, if symptoms still point in that direction they will move forward with doing an endoscopy and colonoscapy.. they will also let us know if he has thalassemia, which is another type of anemia. So for now thats what were dealing with. A whole lot better than leukemia which they have ruled out.

so thank you all again for all your support we cant thank you all enough!

this is a pic i snapped while he was in the hospital
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2371/...d2bc31a347.jpg

Ashley, glad to hear your son is home where he belongs. I know waiting for those results will feel like forever, but you have plenty of support here while you wait.

I am so glad that he got to go home, Ashley. I will still be thinking about your family in my prayers. :hug::hug:

dang double postings.. sorry about that...

thank you :D the doctors wanted to keep him until the results came in but that was going to be another week from now! Were thankful he got to come home, hes reading a book as i type.. bed time is fast approaching, im looking forward to trying to get back in routine!

Even though you don't have a definitive diagnosis, I'm sure it's wonderful to have a few of those scary diseases marked off the list. I'm so glad that your baby is home, and I hope they find a treatment that works soon! :hug:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tigerlily

Even though you don't have a definitive diagnosis, I'm sure it's wonderful to have a few of those scary diseases marked off the list. I'm so glad that your baby is home, and I hope they find a treatment that works soon! :hug:

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:) thanks christie as a mother im sure you know what its like... something being wrong & it being totally out of your hands it is great having a few very scarey ones marked off. its been a very long almost 2 years with him.

So glad to hear all is looking up. Happy to hear that he's back home and doing better.:) The little ones will worry you till your old and gray . I thought when mine were grown my worries were over. Not true. You can't help but worry about your kids.

Ashely, has Ethan been tested for pernicious anemia (also known as megaloblastic anemia). Also for celiac disease, which can be the root cause of this type of anemia as well as other very confusing symptoms.

The reason I ask is I have an older sister that had this type of anemia and it went undiagnosed for years. Some of your son's symptoms sound awfully close to what she suffered before she got the right diagnosis.

The other thing that kind of red flagged for me was celiac disease. We have good friends that had a child Ethan's age with a lot of failure to thrive stuff and again, a lot of what you are describing as symptoms. Many, many doctors came up with many, many ideas but nothing really worked and the poor kid was literally fading away. One doctor finally said "maybe celiac???". Bingo, it was celiac, it's now being dealt with and that child is amazingly well and growing like a weed now. Celiac disease untreated can cause anemia as well as a host of other serious, long term health concerns.

My ex-mother-in-law wasn't diagnosed with celiac until her 60's. She'd been called a hypochondriac her whole life and was always skinny, unhealthy, tired and sickly. It was celiac. The medical community is starting to realize that this reaction to gluten is a lot more common and a lot more serious than once thought.

I'm not doctor hon, but I believe a parent's best defense is to do as much research as they can and be as pro-active as they can. I've included a bunch of links for you to do some reading and see if some of this fits Ethan's health issues.

http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/u...-anemia-basics (especially page 2)

http://www.childrenshospital.org/az/...geS1287P0.html

http://www.kidshealth.org/teen/disea...ve/celiac.html

http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/celiac/#2

I noted you mentioned a possibility of crohn's disease. Please note in those links above they mention crohn's as yet another result of undiagnosed celiac disease.

Wow I can't believe I missed this thread


I am so glad to hear your little boy is at home! :hug: