Grady Update

You all were so kind emailing and commenting sharing your stories and thoughts about Grady and his health stuff and I wanted to update you all. I also believe it could help someone else so that's why I share. Updating since this post. 

Basically I raised my hand and said Grady should not be sick all of the time! Off to the allergist/immunologist we went after a referral from his pediatrician. So the middle of June we had his first appointment with Caroline Hobbs. She is WONDERFUL so if you're in the Charlotte area and ever have the need, definitely see her. She did allergy testing on him and he was not allergic to anything. So ding ding ding, no need to give him Zyrtec every day like we had been doing for at least two years.

Next up was blood tests...the immunology side of things. They did a bunch of different panels including IgA, IgM, IgG and the pneumococcal antibody. The pneumococcal anitbody panel determined he only had 4 antibodies and he should have 14-15 by his age (4). She gathered all of the test results and basically determined that he could possibly benefit from the pneumonia vaccine. 

So, a few weeks later, July 20th, he received the pneumonia vaccine. Usually it's only given to people over the age of 65 but I trusted Dr. Hobbs that she knew what she was doing. After all, she went to school A LOT longer than I did! ;) 

We repeated the bloodwork 4-6 weeks later and guess what. IT WORKED. He had the correct number of antibodies and it was fantastic news. This basically makes his body understand a bacterial infection that he has had before and tells his body to fight against it. His little body could not remember infections before the vaccine.

We had his follow up appointment last week to discuss the results and we are going to see how things go. She doesn't know if this will have to be a reoccurring vaccine for him or not. It could hold him steady or he could need to repeat it. If I feel like he's getting sick a bunch again, we will repeat the bloodwork and see what's going on and go from there. I like the plan. 

He was such a trooper though all of this. He did not care about the vaccine...he told those sweet nurses to just give him the shot in his leg and he'd be fine. He watched the whole thing. Crazy child. Then his follow up bloodwork, we had Molly Anne with us. He didn't cry or care about having bloodwork done this time either. Some of it was probably to prove to Molly Anne how tough he was. Not that I encouraged any of that!!! I think we've gotten over the needles in our household. Age 4 was the magic age for both of mine. I also tell them what's going to go on a day or two prior so they know. This is just what has worked for my children. 

Anyway, I told Dr. Hobbs on the follow up virtual appointment that I felt like I owed her a bottle of wine and wanted to give her a hug to thank you for curing my Grady! She found the problem and fixed it. I loved the outcome and her plan all along. I felt like it was well done and reasonable. Thankful for amazing healthcare in Charlotte. And I'm glad I raised my hand. Trust your Mama gut, always!