UPDATE - 08/12/08

Things have been going well for Karen since my last post. We haven't heard anything new from the doctors, hopefully they will have something for us in the next week or so.

Karen only has to take her Methotrexate once a week. For the time being, Thursdays are her medicine days. The past two Thursdays have actually gone quite well. She has had some nausea, not much of an appetite and a lot of fatigue that lasts for several days, but so far it has been relatively tolerable. Praise God!

UPDATE - 08/04/08

Apparently, there are still a number of you stopping by to follow Karen's progess. Sorry for the lack of updates! I didn't realize y'all were still checking in here.

Several days after Karen's release from the hospital, she followed up with her primary care doctor. He was not very confident in the G.I. doc's assesment of things. With her G.I. history, combined with all of the rheumatologic issues, the PCP felt pretty confident that her diagnosis would turn out to be Colitis or Crohn's. Unfortunately, however, (and I don't necessarily blame him) he didn't want to step up and treat or diagnose her for a disease process that he doesn't specialize in.

About two weeks ago, Karen got in to see the rheumatologist for a follow-up to the hospital visit. The rheumatologist had been unaware of the hospital stay or any of the findings made there, so we spent most of the appointment bringing her up to speed on things. When she found out about the G.I. issues, she was very reluctant to do anything and attempted to refer us back to the G.I. doc.

We expressed our frustration with the way everyone was referring us to someone else, and that no one was providing us any answers, or more importantly, any relief for Karen. She could see our distress, so she stopped what she was doing and went to see a G.I. doc in the building for a consult. After about 45 minutes, she returned and advised Karen to start taking the Methotrexate (this is the chemotherapy drug we refused to put her on before) along with steroids, until they have a chance to develop a more specific treatment plan for her condition. She requested Karen return in 4-6 weeks, after she had an opportunity to see her G.I. doc and get the results from the biopsy taken during the scopes.

This morning, she had her follow-up visit with the G.I. doc. Unforunately, however, the biopsy report was inconclusive, which has left him a bit baffled. He is certain that she suffers from some type of autoimmune disorder, but that the disease process she is experiencing doesn't fall in line with any other documented process. In fact, he went so far as to say that hers may very well be a case studied by doctors and academia because of it's unusual nature.

As you can imagine, this is not really what we wanted to hear. He sent her for more blood tests to help narrow things down. He is going to consult further with our rheumatologist and other specialists. He may even refer her to a more experienced GI doc that specializes in inflamatory bowel disease. He also wants to repeat the colonoscopy in a few weeks.

In the mean time, she will continue taking the methotrexate and the steroids. She took her first dose last thursday, and it wasn't very pleasant for her. Basically, she spent the entire day suffering from extreme exhaustion and nausea. She has since gotten over the nausea, but has not really recovered from the exhaustion. The dosages will continue to increase over the next month, so be praying that she will become more tollerant of the meds. This is a medication that she will be on for a long time, unless we can find some sort of alternative.

Although the doctors are not very thrilled about it, we are still seeking out non-medical treatment options. There are a number of folks out there that claim to have been healed from these types of disease processes through special diets and supplements. We will begin to implementing these ideas immediately with the hope of eventually weaning her back off all the medications. We'll see.

I know there are a lot of you out there praying for her. You are all such wonderful friends to her! Thank you! Please keep praying! I don't know how, yet, but I'm confident that she will be completely healed of all of this!

On a brighter note, Karen got to go to the concert of a lifetime last Friday night. As she put it, "My life is now complete." For those of you that don't know it, Karen loves John Mayer. I was able to get her 4th row tickets to see John Mayer and Colbie Caillat. She said it was just incredible. Here are a couple of pics from the evening.