Journal

Tuesday, November 18, 2008 9:42 AM CST

I have been meaning to update Katie’s page for months. I just haven’t set it as a priority and have been on Medical burnout. I guess I am frustrated with the not know answers for Katie and sometimes I feel that I don’t even want to take her to the doctors, as I am just sick of it all.
These last several months have been interesting as far as Katie’s health goes. She is doing well, but her labs have been all over the place. She started this summer with platelets dropping and becoming low. They did a Bone Marrow Aspiration to check for relapse. Her bone Marrow showed some cells but not enough to say it is a relapse and not enough to treat yet. Than she had some other testing done, she had MRI of neck and spine. The cervical showed slight rotatory scoliosis of the proximal-most thoracic spine, likely there are T2 through T4 anomalous vertebral body elements.
The rest of the cervical spine looked great. Her Spine MRI showed Stable appearance of scoliosis. She has convex right scoliosis at T6-7. She has compensatory curve to the left at the cervicothoracic junction as well as the thoracolumbar junction. She has post surgical change at the L3 level. Persistent punctuate fluid in the cord substance at the T7-T8 level, stable in appearance.
Her Echocardiogram of her heart reports Technically difficult study. Her estimated ejection fraction is grater than 60o that is good. I don’t know if we will repeat this test as there is a lot of blanks on the results.
Her recent labs show basically normal with an exception of increased basophils cells. I did research on them and usually you have an increase during an allergic reaction or anaphylactic shock or when She has always had 0.0 of these cells. She has had 0.4 as her high. Her level now is 4.5 my research showed this definition.
Basophils
The purpose of basophils is not completely understood. Basophils are phagocytes and contain heparin, histamines, and serotonin. Tissue basophils are also called "mast cells." Similar to blood basophils, they produce and store heparin, histamine, and serotonin. Basophil counts are used to analyze allergic reactions. An alteration in bone marrow function such as leukemia or Hodgkin's disease may cause an increase in basophils. Corticosteroid drugs, allergic reactions, and acute infections may cause the body's small basophil numbers to decrease
Katie’s urine continues to get infections. She just had repeat labs done, which shows no infection but she continues to have white blood cells in her urine. The doctor would like an ultrasound of her Kidneys but I have not made that appointment yet. So I will be following up with that.

Katie is still going to physical therapy every week. She has had a large increase in leg length discrepancy and I need to get her new shoes with an 1 ½ inch lift on the left. I will get two pairs, but it will have to probably wait until next year in Jan as money is very tight right now, and I have 5 birthdays and Christmas to still deal with before Jan.

Katie has gained 30 lbs in the last few months. We are not sure what is causing this sudden increase in weight. Maybe its hormones, she has the doctors and us stumped as why there is such rapid weight gain.

Katie will be seeing Dr.Houlkum for her legs and Dr. Browning for her back in orthopedics on the 4th of December.

As far as Katie goes she is a true medical mystery and we live day by day. Right now she has been having these symptoms Throat pain, headaches, back pain and leg pain. She has off and on pain in her right wrist. She complains especially at night and crys a lot in the evening with these pains. Just tonight she told me she has chest pains and I told her to take Tylenol and lay down. I hate that I have to basically ignore her pain as nobody really knows what to do when she is having it. Her hear rate elevates and she gets short of breath.

Katie is doing well in school when she is there. The teachers and other students love her. We had to buy her a musical instrument for band class and she is now learning the bells. They are going to go to 6th grade camp, and Katie would like to go. They talked about sending an aid to camp for her. We have to pay 395 for her if we want her to go, what ever happened to camp as part of the school curriculum?

Other Hann family News and other significant things going on at our household. No order just a lot of info that we should share so you can pray or praise with us.

In August we changed the boys school so they could play High school football. They both made the team and are enjoying playing ball. They also enjoy there grades at public high school. The boys struggled to get c’s at the charter school and now are straight A students.

My cousin Cherish was found collapsed, she died 10 days latter never gaining unconsiouss. We thought it was foul play but we now know it was alcohol and she had 2.4 in her blood stream. There is a family history of alcoholism in my side of the family.

Ashley my oldest daughter has been in an abusive relationship where she was beaten and raped. She choose to stay in this relationship off and on for about 2 years. We were not aware of this abuse and it broke my heart when I found out about it. She is now separated from him and is living out in Boreggo Springs. We really don’t have a relationship with her as she has distanced her self from the family. She does drink a lot and get drunk, which we have no control of and breaks are heart. Please pray she will realize how much we love her and miss her and she stays sober and safe.
She has lost her car as it has been reposed and it was pretty trashed from her boyfriend kicking it and several accidents. Unfortunately we learned a hard lesson not to co-sign for anyone as it went against us.

My sister Kim was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. They thought it wasn’t that big of deal and only removed half of it and than found out it was a rare type of cancer and it had spread so she had to have the other half removed. She ended up with a staff infection and her throat almost closed off and she was inpatient for a while. She had to be on IV antibiotics at home and has just had oral radiation and had to be isolated from her family for a few days.

My sister Kristi has graduated from In His Steps. She spent 6 months in treatment and is now sober, she had gotten so bad and had tried many 30 day treatments in the last couple of years without success. She had alcoholism and prescription drug abuse. She is doing great now and has learned a lot being in treatment for six months and we enjoy seeing the new Kristi.

My Mom had several falls with in a two week period. I had taken her to the hospital and they did several test to make sure she wasn’t still bleeding. Her face is still bruised 6 weeks later. Her face was so bad she looked like she had been in a horrible car accident. Because of her medicine she had a lot of internal bleeding in her face.

Ritchey has been under a lot of stress and complains of chest pain often, he worries about the kids and providing for his family. He has made several trips out of town for a week at a time. Now with the economy being so bad it has rippled down to the sheriff department with overtime now being cut off.

We got a new puppy earlier this year named Baby who almost died on us. We gave the dogs there shots and baby is very allergic to her shots. We rushed her to the ER vet and they were able to give her injection to decrease the swelling. Our other dog Bella went in to heat, we wanted to breed her but we were not successful.

Our washing machine broke and we had to spend several weekend at the laundry mat. The repairman had to order parts we were without a washer for a month. We also had freezer problems but it was repaired and is working well now. We just had to buy a used refrigerator as it froze everything refrigerator and freezer. We turned the refrigerator section off and it still froze all are food. The new refrigerator was old and ice cube maker doesn’t work, but our refrigerator food is not frozen!

My computer also broke at the power supply; thank goodness it was under warranty. My computer is fixed now and fully functional.

Makayla is still occasionally having bad days with her bipolar/ ADHD. She got upset a few months back and kicked the sliding door, it shattered. We were very thankful she wasn’t injured. She is impulsive and sometimes just reacts. We have had her in numerous classes including emotion fitness and anger management. We still have some bad days but she hasn’t broken anything lately.

Madison was ill in September and was placed in the hospital cranialataxia it was very scary and she couldn’t walk. Thankfully she made a full recovery.

Brandon, Sarah, Madison, Makayla, Rebecca, Thomas all have been playing soccer and are on soccer teams. Sarah, Madison and Makayla just won there Division and have play off to represent San Diego for play offs. They are also going to be on an all stars team and are excited.

Katie, Sarah, Madison, Makayla, Rebecca are all still involved in Girl Scouts. We have weekly meetings. We will gear up for cooke sales in Jan.

Friend News-
Gregory Giller relapsed and is now in treatment again.

Alexis a teen from clinic succumbed to her cancer. We were sad of her passing.

Kiki has been fighting since 2004 and desperately needed a Bone Marrow Transplant. They could not find a match. His cancer is back and he is now on hospice and has been given 3 weeks to live. Please pray for him and his family.

Baby Johnathan has also been placed on Hospice. Please pray for him as well.

There are a lot of kids not doing so well right now, please pray for all the children that are sick.

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Katie Rose is at home!

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