Katie update

Remember a few weeks ago I mentioned that the swelling in Katie's knees was a strep infection?  Well she was on penicillin for 10 days and there was no change.
Last Wednesday, the dr called back to check on her - I told them her knees don't look any different. She said she was expecting that...a few doctors had met and talked about Katie's case (cuz it was pretty puzzling to them) and they brought in the Infectious Disease Specialist at Children's Hospital. They agreed that given the high strep results, and the swelling joints it has to be treated as a type of Rheumatic fever.  It just means infected tissue....that, if left untreated, damages children's kidneys and heart valves.

So - Katie has been put on 6 months of penicillin (at least) and we go had to go back to the clinic on Friday for them to take a urine sample and more blood tests to see if her kidneys have been damaged so far.  It took a while, but Katie had her first "pee in a cup" success.  Then they wanted to draw more blood for a Lyme's disease test.  I pointed out that we requested that test during the last blood draw, and it was negative.  Sure enough...that request saved Katie from having to get another needle!

The clinic called us about 3 hours after Katie's appointment to let us know that her kidneys look good so far.  They'll probably check again in a few weeks to make sure everything stays functional.  They also did an EKG, which looked good, but was sent on to the pediatric cardiologist at Children's Hospital for a second opinion.  Then, in 3-6 months we have to go do an echocardiogram to check the status of her heart valves.

We go back in 6 weeks for a checkup.