At last, good news ...

Katie had an appointment with her neurologist, Dr. Cintron, last night. He was very encouraging and explained that what made her so sick and sent her to the hospital the last two times was steroid withdrawal. The doctors at the hospital did not prescribe any steroids for her to take at home to taper off from the IV doses she had received.  Unbelievable. So much suffering could have been avoided had the physicians at the hospital made smarter decisions for my daughter.

The lumbar puncture results did not show any antibodies for MS, so Dr. Cintron thinks that she most likely contracted a virus and instead of her immune system attacking the virus it attacked the myelin sheath of her spinal cord causing the transverse myelitis. He is not completely ruling out MS, there is a slight possibility, but she has no lesions on her brain either (the neurologist at the hospital said she did and was 100% convinced she had a horrible case of MS). Apparently 50 % of patients who suffer from transverse myelitis do not have MS. He wants to check her again in three weeks and then have her undergo another MRI in 6 months and then again in a year.

Katie still has a fairly long road ahead. Healing will take time and she may not notice improvement on a daily basis, but each new week should be better than the previous one. Dr. Cintron said she should be feeling back to normal or very close to normal by the beginning of the new year. He also prescribed the correct dosage of oral steroids for her to take. They are designed to allow her body to begin creating its own natural steroids again.

After the lumbar puncture, he also ran an extensive test for Lyme disease - which includes detecting the tick's DNA in the spinal fluid. There was no evidence of it at all. He does not recommend any further testing for Lyme.

We are encouraged by this news and are looking forward to the day when Katie is up and about and taking care of all the normal things moms take care of. I cannot wait to see her picking up that adorable little boy, bathing him, running after him and tucking him into bed at night. What a glorious gift that will be - so simple; so profound.

A thousand thank yous, dear readers, for your thoughts and prayers!! Our Lord has graciously heard them and He has carried us through this trial with His infinite Love and Mercy. He is so GOOD! You all remain in my daily prayers.