Wait and See. And Worry.

Kate and I trucked down I75 again this morning to Cincinnati Children’s for a follow up with her GI doctor. The last time I wrote about this, we knew she had high levels of eosinophils (a certain kind of white blood cell) in her esophagus, intestines, and blood, but we didn’t know why.

Unfortunately, we still don’t know why, and it looks like we probably won’t know why.

Fortunately, though, we do know a few other things – we know she hasn’t been sick since May and the tests that were run for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis and all kinds of other hideous things came back negative. We also know that her blood eosinophil count continually declined over the summer, and has held steady at a slightly elevated but not ridiculously high level since August. We don’t know if they are still present in her GI tract, and the only way to find out is to have another endoscopy/colonoscopy. This morning the doctor gave us the option to go that route or to wait and see, and we chose the latter. She’s feeling good, not having any symptoms, and was pretty adamant that she did not want to have another scope. The doctor felt comfortable with that approach, and so did I… until I dropped her off at school and had some time for my brain to jump into overdrive on my way to work.

I really, really don’t want to do another scope unless it is necessary, but at the same time, I hate the thought that something could be going on with her that we don’t know about.

I had hoped to walk away from this morning’s appointment with peace of mind, and that’s not really what happened.

I guess the only thing to do is to take it a day at a time, and to remember that she’s happier and feels much better than she did a year ago, and there’s no indication that that’s going to change any time soon.

But I am fairly sure I’m going to still be worried about this when she’s 40.