Mesenteric Adenitis

Oh, you've never heard of Mesenteric Adenitis? Well, that makes two of us (up until earlier this week anyways). So, here we are on day 17 of this less-than-delightful experience and we *think* we have a diagnosis. Yeah, I know, I sound convincing, don't I? But let me explain...the ultrasound on Friday resulted in finding some enlarged abdominal lymph nodes, after which our doctor had a consult with a Pediatric GI doctor at Children's Hospital who told her it could very likely be Mesenteric Adenitis. So that meant we had to run three more blood tests on Monday (yes, that would be a total of EIGHT, if you're keeping track). So with the results of the blood tests, it knocked out a few different things (as they all came back normal), therefore resulting in a diagnosis for this. So...what is it exactly? Well, it seems a little strange that 8 blood tests, 2 urine samples, 1 x-ray, 1 stool sample, and 1 ultrasound would be required to find out that he has a VIRUS, but yes it's true. But it is a virus that causes the abdominal lymph nodes to become swollen and can cause patients serious abdominal pain. An interesting fact--it is very commonly misdiagnosed as appendictis and it probably would have, other than Tyler's pain would come and go in spells. If it had been constant, it's very likely it would have been considered to be appendicitis, so I guess we will be glad at least that they didn't take out the appendix to find out that wasn't the problem. So, there you have it...

And I say we *think* we have a diagnosis because we still aren't totally out of the woods with this yet. Basically it leans in the direction of M.A. because his symptoms have lessened in severity over the last five days and it seems he is improving at least a little every day, which makes it appear that the virus hit its worst point at the end of last week and is now finishing running its course. He still gets between 2-3 episodes of pain in a 24 hour period, but they do seem to be less intense and he hasn't thrown up since the end of last week. He is regaining some of the weight he lost and has a lot better coloring to him. So those are positive signs, obviously. So now we will monitor over the next 5 days and if he makes small improvements and does not revert backwards, we will plan on re-running some labs in a month to make sure that one of them has dropped and also re-do the ultrasound to make sure the lymph nodes have shrunk down to normal size. So, we are not totally out of the woods, but it's starting to feel like we may be headed in the right direction. I hope. Really, it has been exhausting and I'm ready to be done with this chapter and close the book! I honestly felt I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown yesterday when we still had nothing and it had gone on for so long. It was very frustrating! And the day I can wake up not having been up with him at some point during the night, I'll definitely feel like we're making progress!! We'll feel especially great if things look good on all the re-checks in a month.
But I cannot say THANK YOU enough to all of you for thinking of us and praying for us and checking in on us, etc. It has been a scary week and we could feel your prayers and support so much. And we'll just keep praying he'll get completely over this so we can move on to more fun and exciting things...like Halloween! It looks like he's decided to be a skeleton (much to my relief--I wasn't about to figure out how to pull off a boat or a garfish costume), which is fitting since he's lost all the weight, he'll pull it off quite nicely! Thanks again to all of you for thinking of us! We're looking forward to seeing a little more of this happy face...