The rheumatologists just left, and they brought us a diagnosis.
The MRI looked good–no damage to the bone or cartilage in her ankle. That means there’s no infection. According to the rheumatologist, Cee’s official diagnosis is Reactive Arthritis.
We had been leaning toward Juvenile Arthritis, but that’s a long-term illness. The rheumatologist thinks this is more of an isolated incident. He thinks Cee got sick, and her immune system went crazy. That’s sparked this whole arthritic episode. We’re going to start medicine to help with the inflammation. She’ll need to take it by mouth twice a day. (Cee is terrible at taking medicine, so our new prayer is that she’ll take it okay.) She’ll continue to have her symptoms for awhile until things get under control. We’ll be able to follow up with the rheumatologist here at Mayo in a month, and there are whispers of being able to go home soon. Soon! And that’s way more appealing now that we have electricity at home. (There was an ice storm that knocked out the power for several days.) It will be easier to keep Cee eating now that we can use the fridge. 🙂
We’ll need to do follow up with our rheumatologist, probably a physical therapist, and an ophthalmologist moving forward. We’ll have to monitor her blood work as well. But now we have an answer and a plan. Hooray!
(***Update: Catherine’s initial diagnosis was reactive arthritis, but after six months her diagnosis was changed to systemic onset juvenile idiopathic arthritis. It is a chronic disease. We were grateful for the diagnosis in ’13 because we had been waiting for answers for so long, but it was the beginning of the journey, not the end. ~Alicia)