Update on Kylie

Last week Kylie and I went south to Lome to have her MRI done. We met Dr. Kelly and another little patient of hers (Bernadette) on Monday morning and went to a clinic. Here she is waiting to have her 17th IV put in.  She's so good at this now.  

After the IV was put in, we were taken to a waiting room where Dr. Kelly, Berna, me and Kylie visited until it was TIME!

I asked the technician if I could take a photo of Kylie having her MRI, but he said no -- something to do with metal things and a magnetic imaging system and me messing up with whole thing by having a camera in the room.  So before he started the big machine I took a quick pic of her.  She just had to lay down on that bed and her foot went into that big circular thing.  It was pretty cool.  It took about 45 minutes and I was able to stay in the room with her while it was being done.

Here's Kylie and little Bernadette.  We think we have problems -- Berna had to fly with Dr. Kelly to Ethiopia to have a brain tumor removed.  Bernadette is super adorable.  She was having a test done to check up on how her brain is doing since they removed the tumor last November.

After Kylie's MRI was done Dr. Kelly and I were able to look at the images.  Even I could tell that something wasn't right.  All the bones on the image were white, except for one.  Her heel bone.  It was grey and black.  All Kelly said was there there "is some general nastiness in there."  

So, we wait.  Her MRI images have been sent to the USA for two different docs to look at.  Basically, from what my non-medical mind can gather, we will have one of two answers:

1.  Her heel bone is messy but just needs time to heal.  She'll be on long term antibiotics with a repeat MRI in a few months to see if the bone is regenerating. This would be our choice of options.

OR

2.  Her heel bone is messy and she needs surgery.  We'd have to come home (not sure how many of us), see a specialist, get surgery booked etc. etc. That would be our least fave option.

On a happy note, we did have her SED rate done and that number has come down!  Remember normal is 40, and she was 33.  SO AWESOME.  I guess that it could mean that the antibiotics she is on are actually working, but alas, as in all things West Africa makes life difficult because this particular antibiotic is not available at all in Togo.  We are in the process of trying to get it from Ghana and we'll see what happens.  She has five days left of the oral form of this drug and a few days of IV left -- so we're hoping and praying (and hoping you'll be praying with us) that we can get some.

But we trust.  We trust.  We trust.  We trust.  And we trust some more.

The last time I posted, we had a few critters to show you.  Here are a few more pics:

Here is Ethan's size 9 foot inside the print of one of the hippos...

And here's one of our hippos -- this time they came a little closer!

And here they are in a "bloat of hippos" - who knew a group of them was
called a bloat.

And here's our sweet little Howard.  Hasn't he changed so much??  He is getting cuter and cuter.  I think that very soon he will leave us, but for now he still just stays in the cage.