The biopsies are in...

Our visit to the Eos clinic on Tuesday was not my favorite so far. The biopsies certainly showed more eosinophils than the previous set, but it also showed too many lymphocytes. Two kinds of inflammatory white blood cells in places/quantities that is not appropriate seems to have the doctor thinking it could be a different condition. At this point she is not officially "un-diagnosed" with EGID, but it's starting to behave like another Inflammatory Bowel Disease. After googling IBD, it seems that the phrase actually narrows it down to two diseases, Chrons Disease and Ulcerative Colitis. Neither are fun and I do not want to trade Eos for them, but the bright side is that those conditions have BOOKS written about them. The most we can get with EGID is a decent internet article once in a while (and even then it usually focuses on the esophageal version, not the lower GI system.)
If I had to guess, I'd say Chrons based on some of the diagnostic criteria. It's a scary thought, because you pretty much need to stay on medication for the rest of your life. There are other schools of thought out there, mostly the Don Colbert guy but he seems a bit fanatical for me to take him seriously. I trust medicine over evangelism. There are other problems on the side that happen with Chrons like joint, liver and eye inflammation and these patients usually end up having surgery for obstructions.
We're giving her a two week punch of steroids to calm the gut down and see if that doesn't help with food introductions. Friday we go to Denver for an abdominal ultrasound and Monday we go in for a sweat test to finally close the door on Cystic Fibrosis. For some reason she never had a sweat test done, but had very expensive gene mutation blood work done instead. Go figure.
I told mom that I'm not sure if I should cry or go to med school. Here we thought things were figured out, we've moulded our life around EGID and done some pretty extreme things to get it taken care of. I feel like a base has been yanked from beneath me. I think the thought that I'm well versed on something that could now be useless is just as frustrating as the whole situation returning to Mia Is A Mystery. I know I'll get books and just become an expert on whatever it turns out to be, but it's still a weird feeling that I'd compare to limbo. I'm not entirely sure what I should be googling anymore!
Our visit with the dietitian this morning showed that she's gaining about 11 grams per day which is more than a "normal" kid would really need at her age, but the weird thing is that even though she is technically gaining, she's been hovering around 27 lbs for more than 6 months now. The dietitian said it could be water retention, which happens when the gut "leaks".
Gary has a four day weekend for Labor Day, but two of the days will be spent at the hospital in Denver. We are planning to go to Cripple Creek via an old stagecoach road on either Sat or Sun and attend a hot air balloon festival as well. It will be nice to do something fun.
We had our meet and greet with the preschool today. They divided the class into two groups so things wouldn't be overwhelming and it went well. Mia played with play dough for the first time with no reaction! The director was amazing. She brought in this stack of papers that had lists of allergen-free school supplies and informed me that they are switching out the play dough for a wheat-free version and that all of their paints are free of eggs and milk! She found much more information than I found when I was looking more than a year ago. They've made a few special orders on other products that they weren't sure about and have been beyond supportive!

Uncle Chris and Aunt Angie sent mega blocks for her birthday. She stayed with them for an hour!

More bragging. I made a dress and had enough silk left over to make one from a pattern that I've been afraid of. It's a German design and the directions aren't illustrated like McCalls and the like. I found a semi-helpful online tutorial, but the pattern leaves so much room for you to add and change that the tutorial only got me so far and my imagination had to take the rest!

This is the tunic/pinafore part