Thankful

This is a perfect post for Thankful Thursday. I could even say for me it's a thankful, grateful, indebted, appreciative Thursday. I am still a little in awe of what God did today for Madeline. It really is a miracle, that exceeds my wildest thoughts. I didn't dare to hope it would turn out this well.

Basically, yesterday I spoke with a nurse who told me I had no option but to give Madeline the medicine we were pretty certain she would be allergic to and just go to the ER when she started to have reaction. I searched and searched online last night for an alternative, but found nothing useful. Troy and I felt so ill-equipped and lost. We felt our only option was to drive first thing in the morning to a reputable ER and give her first dose of medicine near by.

We prayed for wisdom and that God would direct our steps and keep His hand over Madeline and went to bed. I believed He would, even though my mind wondered what He would possibly do in the middle of the night to change our circumstances.

This morning I was checking my email and must have searched Google with some combination of words I hadn't tried last night. The first website I opened described multiple antibiotic allergies. It said what I had felt all along: "Multiple antibiotic allergies can be scary. If you are allergic to one antibiotic, you have 10 times the risk of an allergic reaction to another antibiotic." It also described drug challenge testing, in which case a minute amount of the antibiotic is given under a physician's supervision and the amount is gradually increased. After a certain point is reached, if there is no reaction, it may be safely assumed that the patient can take the antibiotic. The physician must be present during the test to treat any life-threatening reaction that might occur.

This seemed much more reasonable to me. So I called the emergency number for her Dr., to be sure I wouldn't be transferred to a nurse again, and asked him about this procedure. He said he didn't think they would be able to accommodate us in the office, but we might be able to do it in the ER. He said to just meet him in the office at 9 since he was on his way there (I think he's only in the office 1 day a week). This was exactly when we should have been driving to the other hospital.

I took this as a sign that God was "directing our steps." When he met with Madeline, he said he could only do this if the one compound pharmacy in town would create the right dosages of antibiotic, but he didn't think they would. After a phone call - you guessed it! - he said they had agreed to and we would begin the 1 1/2 hour process in his office as soon as I picked up the prescription.

At this point, I started to believe that God was going to do something really special for Madeline today! The Dr. was ready to start the antibiotic desensitization, as he called it. As best as I can understand, it means by starting with extremely small doses of the antibiotic and slowly increasing the dose, the "allergy" systems of the body develop a sort of tolerance to the drug and do not react to it. The goal being that Madeline would eventually be able to take a full dose without further reaction. I had never even heard of this before this morning, but was really excited that it might work.

I purchased 5 doses of different strengths of the medication. Madeline and I sat in his office, as each dose was administered, with 15 minutes between each dose. She was quite content with all the attention, a dvd and some snacks. She was monitored by the Dr. and nurse throughout the procedure and had NO reaction!!!! Unbelievable.

We were sent home with our original prescription, she is able to take a normal dose now. (We also have a prescription for 3 epi-pens, which we have desired to have on hand for quite some time.) But apparently if she stops taking the drug, the desensitization does not last, and we cannot just start it up again at any time. We will return in 2 weeks for another culture of the infection. This is an incredible answer to one of our prayers (that she would not be allergic to the antibiotic)!

What we need to continue to pray is that THIS antibiotic effectively kills THIS particular strain of bacteria. The Dr. did tell us that if this one does not work, the only next option for a child her age is hospitalization (in-patient care and IV drugs), which lasts days.

God has provided a miracle today, and we believe He will provide another. We won't know for about 3 weeks (2 weeks + 6 days for the culture results), so we have all that time to pray for her healing and ask God to do another miracle.

Thank you for all of you who have forwarded our request on to other friends and left me encouraging messages today. I feel like an army got together on Madeline's behalf and I am so blessed.

Lots of love,