P.O.T.S.

Yesterday, my son, Caden, stayed with me while I had my chemo visit, and my husband, along with his parents, took our daughter Cara to Texas Children's Hospital. We have been trying for over a year and a half to find what was causing her fainting/near fainting, nausea and dizziness she has been experiencing. 

My son and helper at MDA.

When she would have these 'episodes' she would turn very pale - even her lips would lose all their color. We've taken her to the ER, to her doctor, to a cardiologist who ordered an echocardiogram and tilt test, her gynecologist did an ultrasound and other tests - all came back negative. Her PCP then ordered a 2 hour sugar test, which came back abnormal at the 2 hour sugar level but they didn't think it was serious, and apparently the endocrinologist at TCH didn't think it was a problem, either. 

My Sweetie!

So she finally saw a neurologist at TCH and he took a look at all the data from all the previous tests, asked all kinds of questions, checked her out, then gave us a diagnosis - Cara has P.O.T.S. - Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. (You can click on P.O.T.S. for a complete definition.)

The short version is her blood pressure is too low which causes her blood to not flow as it should, affecting different areas of her body. She will need to take several salt tablets daily, an iron pill and drink lots of fluid. After a few weeks they will do blood work again to retest and see how she is doing. Cara was also accepted into their clinical study for children with P.O.T.S.  They want to see how well P.O.T.S. children absorb iron, so any tests related to this study will be taken care of by the hospital. We will get more info on her condition but not have to pay all the co-pays. God is good!

Me at MDA, July 11

The past couple of days have not been too good for me - I had a severe headache - probably a migraine - on Tuesday and no medicine would help the pain or nausea. I threw up and felt horrible and dizzy and I wondered how I would be make my visit to MDA the next morning. But on Wednesday I woke with just a mild headache, however I still had nausea, and even after taking my nausea medicine I still experienced it all the way to the hospital.

It was made worse by the fact that the normally 2 hour drive took over 2 hours and 45 minutes as it was raining and we got caught in the morning rush hour traffic! I was nearly 45 minutes late for my appointment and shaking so badly I could barely walk when we got there.

However, after the chemo I started feeling much better! Weird! Maybe because they always give me a saline solution with the different medicines? Whatever it was, I was so glad when the nausea left me and today has been a much better day, no nausea at all! I was even able to run errands. Thank you, Lord!

I did post on Facebook when I had the sickening headache and had people praying for me. God did answer prayer, it just took a little longer than I wanted (which is usually the case - I can be very impatient!) 

Thank you to those who are praying for my entire family, we sure do need it! Please say a pray for another family friend who just found out she has cancer on her kidney. She is about my age and Bryan has known her since he was young. Pray that they will be able to get all the cancer when they remove her kidney and pray that it has not spread. There is too much cancer going around! Please pray for a cure!

May God bless you all with a very special blessing today!