Yesterday evening Keira came down with her first fever since she was 8 months old! We knew it was inevitable that she would get sick at some point. Keira has had a slight stuffy nose for a few days but it's most likely she picked up something when she was at the hospital on Wednesday for the laryngoscopy/bronchoscopy procedure. :(
Tylenol made her comfortable enough to sleep and we already had our monthly visit with Dr. Effinger scheduled for today. When we arrived at LPCH her temperature was back up so the took us over to the Day Hospital to run some tests. Dr. Effinger knew she wasn't feeling well right away, as K wasn't talking a mile a minute and running circles around the room.
Although Keira was feeling under the weather, she was super brave and cooperative. Keira had to get a "poke" so that they could run a CBC. Immune suppressed kiddos are at a much higher risk for a blood infection. They also wanted to get a urine sample to check for infection. Keira's recent potty training came in handy as she was able to pee in a cup, and she tolerated the nose swab better than most adults would.
While we are still waiting on the influenza test results, her blood work looked great. Dr. Effinger/Dr. Twist felt that we needed to put her on another steroid for a few days to help her body cope with being sick. When someone is on long term steroids, as Keira is, the body doesn't know how to regulate steroids on its own. When we get sick our adrenal glands produce a different steroid to help with the stress of actually being sick so it's important we help K's body do just that. That meant that poor K had to swallow yet another nasty tasting medication. The promise of vanilla ice cream when we got home helped make it go down a bit faster. :)
As far as her OMS is concerned we are watching her closely to look for any symptoms. We had not noticed anything unusual the days before she got sick so we are keeping our fingers crossed that this will pass without a big flare up. It's so sad to see your little one not feeling like herself... Happy thoughts appreciated as always.