Audra's health update

Audra has been struggling with not feeling quite herself for a while now.

Really, ever since she got sick on vacation in August.

She just hasn't gotten back to "herself".

She has been sent home from school many times for low grade fevers.

And generally she just seems tired and sluggish.

She isn't using the few words that she usually does,

and she isn't her happy, smiley, hyper self.

 

She hasn't had any symptoms to help guide us to what might be bothering her

and her limited language really impacts her ability to tell us what is wrong.

She is such a little mystery.

 

We have talked with many of her specialists and done some non-invasive testing to try to determine the problem. 

All we know is that her bloodwork shows signs of infection/inflammation but where is the big question ?!

 

So we came up with a plan...

Audra was scheduled to have dental work done under anesthesia so her GI doctor decided to scope her too.  And today was the big day.

 

Here she is in pre-op this morning with her faithful hospital buddy Pink-Flamingo-Bunny.

 This is their 13th trip to the OR together in Audra's 3 1/2 years at home.

 

Audra had an eventful afternoon in the OR...

sweet girl needed to have FIVE teeth extracted due to "crowding".

She had some adult teeth coming in but none of her baby teeth were even loose yet. 

So now she is missing six total including the one she lost on her own last month.

The top two and bottom four teeth are gone,

she is a toothless wonder.

Will certainly make for easy slurping of noodles !!

And as if that wasn't enough,

the dentist also took care of a few cavities and a crown.

This princess has more crowns than she needs

{in her mouth that is, not on her precious head!}

 

The scope went well also, but no real answer was found.

It showed her usual friable tissue with a tendency to bleed.  But no lurking signs of infection/inflammation...or worse.

So now we wait for the biopsy results to come back next week.

Once we finally got home after our long day,
Maura was super sweet and wanted to comfort and take care of Audra.
Her little face is so swollen...



but she still managed to give me a {toothless} smile for the camera :)