ONE DAY AT A TIME....

I took Ayla to get her blood work drawn a couple of days ago. I was not looking forward to it, but I knew that we needed to get a baseline before we started her new medicine. She was fine until we actually stepped through the doors of the lab. She instantly started crying, I guess she remembers what happens when she goes there. This was not good considering we have to have her blood drawn every month now to monitor her liver. Even though I use a topical numbing cream, it is still traumatic for her at this point. She cried the whole time and then when it was "all done" as she says, with huge tears streaming down her face she said "thank you Ita"(Rita) to the lady who drew her blood. She is so sweet. Of course this scored her big points with the employees in the lab and she got apple juice, Gram crackers, stickers and two stuffed animals. She tells everyone thank you, even when we are checking out at the grocery store or at target she says thank you to the people at the cash register. It is so funny. She says thank you when you change her diaper or when you put a bow in her her. What a sweet spirit she is. I just wish that she felt better. She has been holding her right arm/wrist for the past few days and has told us that it hurts so I am not sure if this is the arthritis or not. I do not see any swelling, so I guess we will just have to watch it for now. I have already got the results of her blood work, everything is about the same. Sed rate is still high, hemoglobin still low.
While I was writing this, her Doctor from Cincinnati called to tell me that she had just got her lab results. She of course told me everything that I had already knew. She said she wanted to reduce Ayla's Naproxen dose from 1 tsp 2x a day to 3/4 tsp 2 x a day. She said Ayla is on the max dosage and has been for a long time and she is worried about GI problems. She also wants us to start her on a multi-vitamin with iron for her low hemoglobin. She said in the future we may have to do some iron studies, but for right now, we will try the vitamins. So for now all we have to do is get x-rays done and that will be all for a few weeks. Please continue to keep her in your prayers. Here are Ayla's most recent lab work results.
hemoglobin 10.6 normal (11.2-16.0)
platelet count 624 normal is (120-450)
sed rate is 61 normal is (0-20) this is used as inflammation marker