Katia

Well, this post is just to bring everyone up to date on what's going on with Katia. I hope you will pray for her in the weeks to come.
At the end of summer, I noticed this large hump/bump on the right side of her back up near the shoulder blades. It was so large that it was alarming because it just suddenly appeared. I had watched the kids in the little pool we have all summer and I never saw anything on her back. I thought maybe her back was just really out of alignment or that maybe she was having trouble with her lungs or something. She takes a steriod inhaler(pulmicort) twice day and has for the past two years or so. So I made an appt first with a new chiro that took our insurance. He saw her twice a week for about two months- he said she has scoliosis and that with adjustments, it could eventually correct it. Well after that time, I didn't noticed any change at all. I called her pediatrician. He saw her and said to stop the chiro treatments immediately and that he wanted to refer her to this dr. that deals specifically with scoliosis- anything over 10% curve, he refers to this doc. The chiro said her curve was around 14%. Scoliosis at over 19% would require some type of treatment- bracing according to the chiro. Well, anyway- we had her initial appt with this bone dr back in December, but Tyler got sick with stomach flu and I had to rescedule for a month later(he only sees scoliosis patients once a month). Which brings us to last week. This doctor is in Marquette, his name is Dr. Southern. This guy is really thorough and super intelligent- most of the appt, was way over my head, but he dictated everything and was going to give me a copy anyway.
Now to go back to 9 years ago, when Katia was born. Right after I had her, hours later she was wisked off for an ultrasound and another hour later for an MRI of her spine. She had what they call spina bifida occulta. It was a spot at the end of her spine that was about the size of a pencil lead and was a deep pit. At that time, there was also what they call a mongolian birthmark there. The tests they did then were to make sure that her spinal column was indeed closed and it was. Praise the Lord! No need to worry about it really- they had told me to make sure keep it clean during diaper changes. Okay so then we moved up north, she was three months old and developed a diagnosed seizure disorder. Sometimes having 30 seizures a day. But it was not epilepsy and the neurologist said that she would most likely outgrow it. And she did at about 18 months old. So fast forward 7 years or so. We got that diagnosis of her pre-glaucoma. The optic nerves both cupped to unusual amount for even an adult. Okay, so all the dr's know about her birth- it's always been something I have written in everything. Well, this new orthopedic surgeon has found a possible link to all this.
So last week she had another set of x-rays on her spine- her scoliosis maybe worsened since the one back in October or the chiro didn't figure it out right. One curve was over 20%, but her whole spine is even rotated, her neck is messed up, her shoulders are far from equal, and her head tilts obviously to one side. The plan of attack, he needs to figure out if all her infancy troubles, the glaucoma are all related in what they called a tethered cord. It's complicated, but a growth starts on the spine and it pulls on the spine resulting in sudden onset scoliosis. So he ordered 4 MRI's! I thought she only had to have 1, but anyway- she has two this afternoon and two more tomorrow morning. She won't be having any meds for it- with kids they put them under so we've opted to just try and see how she does without. If it is this tethered cord, then surgery looms to clip this thing and the thought is that the spine with then release. I've only researched a little bit- but from what I have read at one site- out of 12 operations for this, 8 had complications. So I'm praying she just had the regular old scoliosis and even as bad as a brace would be, I think it would be definately a safer thing. Plus, since this is pretty rare thing, we would likely having to travel a great deal, either NY or Penn so with that - you can imagine what that all would entail for a family. It's natural for a Christian to pray for the thorn to be removed, and that's where I'm at. I know the Lord will bring us all out on the other side of this trial just fine, I am just asking for your prayers in all this. That His will will be done. I'm just a mom who just doesn't want to make these tough decisions for her daughter. So it's one of those times when you just have to give it to God. He's always been faithful and always will be. I'll give an update as I learn anything. Thank you so much!