Words are Hard to Come By…

I have been searching for the right words to update because we have been dealing with a ton.  And quite frankly, it gets harder and harder to share difficult news with people who we know care and love us dearly.  I want to desperately share only amazingly good news…unfortunately we have been bashed with more challenges.

Since my last update, Parker was discharged a day early from the hospital, at my request, so that we could check him into school on the final day of FTE week.  This is an important week in schools, because if children are not present at least one day that week, then the school doesn’t get their funding for that child.  And because Parker has an IEP, his school gets more money to support him.  We know that Parker requires more supports and work, so I really wanted to help the school out by getting him there.

As we left the hospital, we got his final test results.  Parker has been receiving replacement therapy because he does not make cortisol and due to this his adrenal system tries to shut down.  Well, even with replacement therapy, his levels were still low.  We were informed that I probably shouldn’t have transported him to the hospital last emergency.  This last time was a really close call because his adrenal system shut down and we could have lost him.  So, now his daily replacement cortisone has been doubled and we have been given an “emergency shot” to carry to save his life.  Now I carry an epi-shot and a cortisol shot for him.

We also got his MIR results.  His SI joints are inflamed and there is much synovial fluid around them with the left being worse than the right.  This would explain why he has had increased pain in his hips, groin, and lower back.  And apparently there could be a connection with the SI joint issues and his feet issues.  His doc is really confused by the SI joints issue.  This is not a common area of involvement with systemic JA.  She has been thinking on this and has asked us to give her until next week as to a plan of treatment regarding this newest discovery.

I cannot imagine how hard all of this constant bad news is on our son.  And I have to marvel, that despite all of his incredibly difficult health battles that he continues to persist.  And although he didn’t make it full days to school this past week, he went every single day.  He went because he is desperately trying to have some normalcy in his life.  He went because he is part of a community and is proud that he has achieved something that is important to him.  He went because this is the place where he is around his friends who encourage and support him and make him laugh and smile.  He went because to him, school is his safe place, a place where his is accepted, and a place that fills him with hope for the future.  And each day that he climbed into the car at the end of the day, he did so feeling accomplished.

School has been his motivator.  He sets goals around school.  And although the make-up work has felt overwhelming, he has been mapping out a plan to accomplish it.  He even has a dry erase calendar to write out tasks in chunks.  He has been emailing his teachers, checking the online system, and prioritizing tasks…determined to succeed this year. 

Michael and I have marveled at his emotional growth this year and how much he has taken initiative.  One prime example of this is when he was added onto a group presentation this week.  The kids he was grouped with at the last minute never sent him the slides he was to present on.  So Parker took it upon himself to create a whole new presentation in PowerPoint from scratch to present on.  Now this is impressive…especially given how much make-up work is on his plate.

Friday was the last day of the grading period.  So, of course, we knew he would likely have to get incompletes.  Since the start of school, he has had lots going on medically, has missed days of school and has had two hospital stays.  We have worked hard to try to schedule all his medical appointments at the end of the day and when scheduling his upcoming surgery, we even went in and met with the principal to try and decide when to schedule the surgery so that it would have the least impact on school. 

For a kid that his endured incredible amounts of difficulties, you can imagine our devastation when we were told that he could no longer attend his school because this school is too rigorous and he is absent too much.  The depression has officially set in…for all three of us.  We have been processing, trying to think of our next steps, trying to figure out how to best meet his educational and medical needs… and we will figure out a plan…but for now, we ask that you just support and love us and pray for our strength.

Hoping Ilaris Will be Parker’s Miracle…

Well, the mean JA beast is continuing to attack.  As Parker shared in his last blog, the biggest sign that the rilonacept (the study biologic he has been on for 3 years) is no longer working well was because his knee blew up huge.  Since he wrote the last blog, he has continued to have low grade fevers, rashes, swelling, and increase pain.  We have made the difficult decision to move on to the next biologic, Ilaris.  It too is an IL-1 drug and for us that is promising.  But the scary part is, it is the last one to try.

Yesterday, Parker was admitted into the hospital to try to control his pain and swelling a little better but also to run tests.  Labs were taken last night and this morning.  Ultrasounds of his joints will happen soon and later today he is scheduled for a 4 hour MRI of cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine along with SI joints and hips/pelvis with contrast.  The new doc in partnership with his pediatric rheumatologist is experienced with ultrasounds in pediatrics and joint injections and will be doing those tests.

While working on getting the insurance to process the Ilaris, Novartis Pharmaceutical has agreed to provide the first dose for free and it is being shipped here.  This is pretty incredible news because as the doc says, “this is like liquid gold at $30,000 a shot”.  We will cherish it and hope it does a fabulous job at helping Parker.  I literally just got news, thank God, that the insurance has approved the Ilaris for two years.  Incredible news.

And today I met the office manager that processes all these medical needs.  She came to Parker’s room herself to deliver the good news of a two year approval.  What a beautiful angel on earth.  There are so many people working behind the scenes for our son and I am eternally grateful.

My prayers have been constant.  I am praying, of course, for our son’s health to be restored.  I am also praying for his school to remain constant in supporting him.  I am most concerned about school and I know we shouldn’t worry because his health is most important, but I firmly believe that school is part of his health…his social emotional health…his opportunity to feel part of his community; his chance to connect with friends; and of course an education for his future.   This school year started off great and still to this day he has not used his wheelchair at school.  He has pushed through some tough days with remarkable strength and drive.  I also have been watching him grow in his relationships and his outlook of his future has been more optimistic.  These are all huge blessings.  So of course, I hope for this to remain possible.

I will write more later once we have more results.  We thank all of you for your support and care.

Much love.

Here We Go Again...by Parker

So these last couples of weeks haven’t exactly been the greatest. My arthritis has been at war with my body. I have started getting flares again and that’s pretty weird considering how I was feeling before this flare. Things were really good, I was making it to school almost every day and I wasn’t even using my wheelchair.

But then, all of the sudden, it was like a bomb got set off in my body and that bomb hurt. First it was my lower back, shoulders, and neck that started hurting; so I switched to a rolling backpack. The next thing I knew was my ankles and feet were being attacked. If you look at the picture to the left and look at the red circle, you would probably guess that bump is my ankle. Guess what, it’s not.  That is actually the bone in the arch of my foot trying to push out. This became a problem because I’ve been wearing braces since the surgery.  When I walk, that bone hits the hard plastic and very badly hurts.

In addition to all this, I started having daily fevers again. Now I know that fevers are a symptom of systemic JA but I take a drug called Rilonacept and that drug is supposed to do 2 major things for me. Those 2 things are to keep my pain and swelling at bay and to suppress fevers. So when all this stuff started happening, we were pretty concerned.   

Then, another pretty weird thing happened. There are 2 joints on my body that don’t swell too bad, and those are my elbows and knees. And guess what, my knee got huge this week. Just look at the picture to the right. I mean really, if I didn’t know any better I’d think that was a thigh. The next day I woke up and my knee was still pretty huge.  We called my doctor and she said to go to my orthopedic surgeon to see if he would drain it. So we went to go see my surgeon and he wanted to take some x-rays of the knee before the appointment.  Since  we were there, he wanted to also get some x-rays of my feet and ankles. Well by the time we got up to his office and ready to see him, my knee had gone back down quite a bit. But he still wanted to look at my surgical site x-rays, especially my feet x-rays. And this is where everything went down hill.

If you look at the x-ray to the left, in the red circle you can see what my foot looks like with the cadaver bone fusing with my bone. And it looks pretty good. But if you look at the x-ray to the right, in the red circle you can see where the cadaver bone was located. And well, it’s not there, it’s gone. It was basically rejected by my body and was completely absorbed.

Now my bone has a gap where the surgeon had severed it during the surgery.  And all this time it has felt like the bone is trying to escape my body by pushing out the side of my foot because it is actually pushing out and my arch is completely collapsed again.  As you can imagine, we decided that it’s time to switch to a new drug called Ilaris, as soon as insurance approves it.

So you may be asking, what does this mean? Well, it basically means that the surgery didn’t work in my left foot. And on November 18^th 2015, I go back into surgery but this time to permanently fuse my foot. This was a lot for me to take in and I’m doing the best I can to stay positive. So, I want all of you to remember that you’re never fully dressed without a smile.