04 Oct What now?
“What now?” comes out of my mouth too much than I would like to admit with my kids. Evidently enough that Keegan and Audrey have both started parroting it to each other. And sometimes to me!
Today, we were saying it to Keegan and his medical team for an entirely different reason when we ended up in the ER at the Legacy campus this afternoon. Fortunately, we are home tonight, and yet unfortunately, we don’t have many answers than when we went in.
Keegan ran a low grade temperature all afternoon on Saturday. Not quite high enough to warrant bringing him in for cultures and antibiotics, but high enough to make him tired and feeling crummy. We braced ourselves for what we were sure was an ER trip and admission by Sunday morning. However, the fever was gone Sunday morning. Keegan continued to act fatigued, and his bowel movements started to get looser. Still, there wasn’t much I could put my finger on that I felt we needed to call the medical team before his regularly scheduled labs on Friday. Until he woke up with a pronounced limp this morning.
Twice last week he woke up limping but was ok by noon. Not today. Limping can be a sign of arthritis caused by inflammation from a flare in his joints. The combination of events led us to agree to bring him in this afternoon. X-rays showed no signs of a fracture anywhere in his left leg. His labs were somewhat thought-provoking. Mostly, they looked pretty stable; inflammation markers were normal. His ferritin wasn’t high either. However, his coagulation factors were elevated; his white count and ANC were high for him. His D-Dimer was elevated too, which is not a benign factor. Since he was acting ok though, we came home for the night to confer with the rheumatology team tomorrow.
So what now?
Something is not right. These labs do not add up, and while he does not appear to be in pain, there is certainly something wrong with his hip or leg. We are just praying that we get some sleep tonight before trying to get a better answer to “what now?” tomorrow. As always, we would greatly appreciate you joining us in that prayer.