Pediatrician Check Up

I am so glad that we had a scheduled check up with Ethan's pediatrician this morning. I had a few concerns and Dr. Cohen really put my mind at ease. She is so thorough, asks how he is feeling and really tries to help us deal with the side effects.  Ethan woke up this morning with a bad cough, very wet sounding, and his protein also went up slightly. Which was very discouraging as he was a trace yesterday. He has to be negative for protein for 3 full days before we can call Children's back and see what the next step is. Dr. Cohen said it was actually quite normal for him to go up and down in the early stages of prednisone. She said she wasn't concerned about his protein today, because it only went up one above trace. She said if it jumped to the end of the protein scale then they would get concerned. She really feels that Ethan is responding to the prednisone and that is a good sign, they don't get "excited" about it until he reaches 3-4 weeks of being on prednisone and still spilling. So we will have to be patient a little while longer at this massive dose! 

To help with the insomnia, she advised that we give him 6mg of melatonin at night instead of the 3mg we have previously been doing. She said it is totally safe and natural and they use it all the time with Nephrotic kids, and that once the dose of prednisone goes down we can go back to the 3mg. But for right now she said he does need to sleep, and melatonin is better than sleeping pills. As for his stomach pains, she also advised that we give him two 75mg Zantac a day, instead of the one pill we were giving him. So hopefully these new additions will make for some good changes for Ethan.

As for the cough that he now has, she is concerned about it. Upon examination his chest sounded very wheezy and because he is immune compromised they don't take his getting sick lightly. For now she prescribed a puffer for him to take. But she said she won't hesitate to put him on antibiotics if he gets worse or a fever. He already has fluid in his ears so an infection might be brewing. He has no immune system to fight this off, and what frustrates me is that he got this cough from the boy who sits next to him at School on Friday. The boy was coughing like crazy and Ethan said "why are you here, you should be at home". " The boy responded that his Dad said it was just a cough and he had to go to School". Just a cough is fine for most kids but for Ethan it can mean he ends up in the hospital. He gets colds/ flu's worse than other kids. So for now we will try the puffer and see how the week goes. I am to phone Dr. Cohen back right away if he gets a fever or looks or feels worse. One good thing is that Ethan's blood pressure is normal. But he has gained 6 pounds now so that is why his clothes are feeling tight! She assured Ethan that once we can get him to every other day dosing he will start to feel better and not so hungry too! So please pray that Ethan will get to negative very soon.