Eyes Wide Opened

It's been a long time since I've blogged.  I got tired of journaling nothing but medical updates, which seemed to be my season, so I gave up on it.  Ironically, it's what's brought me back to the blog.

For those of you who have followed the girls health sagas, not a lot has changed.  Kate still is sick all of the time and Leah still has muscle and fine motor issues.  Praise God, Leah is in a very stable season and is doing fantastically.  We seem to have found a good schedule and regiment for her and we are so grateful for that!  Hopefully, someday soon, we will be able to say the same for Kate.

In April, I took Kate in for her 6 year old well check.  I updated the pediatrician on where we were at with Kate's stuff.  Basically it was the same place as always; 12+ antibiotics a year (for the last 6 years), many daily meds, specialists wanting to do more surgeries (she's had 6 already), etc.  The only improvement we've seen in 6 years is a decrease in frequency of oral steroids.  While this is terrific, it is at the cost of high dose daily inhaled steroids.

After discussing where we were at, I mentioned a wart on K's toe.  We'd treated it with OTC products on and off without much success.  I asked him to go ahead and take care of it.  He and our favorite male nurse, who is Kate's honorary big brother, went to work cutting and freezing the spot on her big toe.  They spent 45 minutes working on it, while she spent 45 minutes pinned to the bed screaming.  When they finished, her pediatrician recommended we see an immunologist again.  This was on a Monday and when we left, we had an appointment at TCH immunology clinic for that Wednesday.  Our doctor is wonderful, but I should've known, you never get an appointment with TCH that quickly.

We went to the appointment and spent hours going over history.  The doctor had already met with K's pulmonologist and the immunologist she saw as an infant.   She was very thorough and VERY concerned with the wart.  Apparently, unbeknownst to me, they had cut somewhere around 14 spots out of that one wart we saw.  To me this was a bit of a shock, as you could only see one little spot, but nothing too worrisome.  To the immunologist, it said a lot.  I hadn't put together that warts are indeed a virus.  So is the mulloscum she has had on her skin for the last two years.  To the immunologist, this spoke loudly to what was going on inside Kate's body.

We spent the whole day there and then got up the next morning to go back for more testing and history.  She had a full allergy work up and somewhere around 10 vials of blood drawn again.  We have been back many, many times for visits and labs and will continue to work with this immunologist to try and find a treatment plan that will work for Kate and, Lord willing, a diagnosis.

In the meantime, we had a huge issue come up.  At the very end of May, I was doing the traditional Saturday night scrub down on Kate and went to cut her toenails.  I noticed something on her foot that hadn't been there a few days prior.  Kate immediately melted down and tried to convince me it was sand, despite having just exited the shower.  She insisted she had, "stepped in something sticky and then some sand".  I was shocked at what I saw.  I freaked out, Glenn came in and he freaked out and Kate was hysterical at the thought of having to get this frozen off.  I got her to bed and texted a friend asking for prayers.  She asked if another friend could call me.  She is a mutual friend from church, who had spoken to me before about Young Living essential oils.  I had gone to a class a few weeks prior, but wasn't really buying all the claims they made.  I met with the teacher afterwards and asked about Kate's health since she too had a daughter who had been sick a lot.  I got the expected answer of, "Oh my daughter wasn't that bad".  I didn't put much weight in oils doing anything for Kate.  So this mutual friend called and offered to bring some oils to church for us to try.

 This is what her poor foot looked liked the next day when it finally donned on me to take a picture of it.  The spot under her middle toe changed and spread hour to hour literally.  Since it was Sunday and she was having trouble walking on it at this point, I decided to give the oil a try.  I called the pediatrician first thing Monday and they immediately got busy getting her the first available appointment with dermatology.  They then called with that information.  Issue is, that first available appointment?  18 months out.....EIGHTEEN MONTHS out....while I'm literally watching this stuff take over her foot.  It was to the point she couldn't walk on it because it hurt and felt like she was "walking on marbles".  I had just confirmed plans and tickets for an upcoming trip to Africa (hopefully I'll get around to posting about that amazing trip) and was panicked and looking at backing out quickly.  We finally found a dermatologist that could see her in two weeks.  So we decided to give the oils a try while we waited.  The doctor was pretty sure they would have to inject the area with chemo to kill it all off.  Apparently, the external part of the wart is only a tenth of what is really under there.  We reached out for prayer, had the elders pray over her and began putting Frankincense oil on her toe twice a day.

She was excited to try ANYTHING other than going to the doctor.

 

We noticed some minor changes, but couldn't really tell if they were for the better or worse.  This next picture was taken on Thursday night at bedtime.  All of a sudden, we were becoming believers in YLEO.  You could definitely see changes happening and she was back to walking normally.  This was also the night that we found something on her sheets and spent way too long at bedtime with our microscope trying to decide what it was.  :)

 We continued applying the frankincense morning and night through Sunday.  Monday afternoon, we went to the pool with friends and then stopped by my folks house to pick something up.  While we were there, Nana asked to see K's foot.  She commented that it was looking good and that it looked like things were about to fall off.  I responded something like, "Yeah, we are starting to notice some changes", when she said, "No, really.  I think it's about to fall off!".  What happened next was like a Sci-Fi horror film.  Kate flipped her foot over and began pulling clumps of blood vessels out of her foot.  I use the term "pulling" loosely, as they were  more just falling off.  There was no effort to it.

 

They literally all popped off!  She had one last, little spot that came off that night.  I could not believe how healthy the skin looked underneath.  The OTC's we'd used were acids that literally burn all the tissue, good and bad.  The freezing and cutting definitely damaged the surrounding skin.  The oil left perfect, healthy skin.  This was absolutely amazing to me.  This picture was Tuesday morning.

Kate's foot is still perfectly clear!  8 days, 15 applications and she was back to normal.  We kept the appointment with dermatology just so we would be able to get in sooner if we needed to in the future.  We had to take pictures of what was wrong with her now perfectly healthy foot, as well as the baggie of "parts" she insisted on keeping.  I am so glad that God found a way to open my eyes to other possibilities despite my stubbornness.  I truly believe there is a time and place for modern medicine, I work in a pharmacy, for crying out loud, but I am so excited to see the results we are getting with oils and to be learning more about them.

What does this mean for Kate?  Since we are in the beginning stages of testing for immune deficiencies, we are being very careful with what we do right now.  We would love to oil her all up and watch what happens.  However, we feel it is very important to get a clear diagnosis for her.  The doctors don't seem to think the oils will effect her blood levels.  After watching what they did to her skin, from the inside out, I am not so convinced they won't.  On one hand, that is great news as we would LOVE to effect everything inside of her.  On the other hand, we don't want all of her labs to have false or manipulated numbers and have her dismissed as normal.  So for now, we wait.  If we reach a point where they don't offer us any more options or diagnosis, we will be treating everything with oils to see what happens.  How exciting to finally have an option for a plan B and a wonderful one at that!

The rest of the family is using them often and we are all in love with what they are doing for us!  If you have any questions about YLEO, please feel free to contact me.  I'd love to be able to share more of the testimonies that we, personally, have seen.