Update on Isabella

Isabella is home now, Yay! We came home Tuesday night after dinner. She is doing great, back to her normal self. Basically what happened is that the doctors are pretty sure she has a blood disorder called Hereditary Spherocytosis. (We get the final diagnosis Monday at the Hematologist) Basically it is a form of anemia where her red blood cells are round instead of oval and concave. These round cells burst and die faster than normal, and they get caught in her spleen and die faster. When she gets sick, I guess a lot of them can burst at once causing a lot of bilirubin to be in her blood making her Jaundiced. The excess bilirubin caused a gallstone, which passed into a bile duct making her pancreas inflamed, giving her pancreatitis. So basically one huge domino effect that starts with the irregular red blood cells. Phew, did you get all that! There is no cure, just if she continues to have Gall bladder problems they will remove it. She may have to have some blood transfusions occasionally and if its really bad she may have to have her spleen removed. None of which is life threatening, but it will be something she will have to live with her whole life.

We are not thinking about any of that now though, short term she is taking meds for the Jaundice and is on a low fat diet for the gall stones. Since she is on low fat, we are all on low fat which is probably a good thing!