And so we meet again . . .

Hello Fever . . . And so we meet again!  

Patrick began a fever last Thursday and it is still lingering today.  He gets these fevers every month and normally last 5 days.  Sometimes they are just riding the line just above 100.6 and other times can peak at 104 but mostly are about 101/102.

Patrick was happy this morning but now you can tell he feels pretty cruddy....he has gotten pretty used to these fevers and normally can just ride them out but gets a whole lot more tired (more than usual) and pretty irritable when he is tired.  He doesn't ever have any other symptoms...no sore throat, runny nose, stomach aches...he just gets real pale and and dark circles under his eyes.  

Doctors have tried to link this with his painful and ache-y joints and diarrhea but the joint pain is pretty random and the diarrhea is all the time.  

Tylenol and Ibuprofen don't help his fevers....they either stay the same or increase the fever rather quickly.  There are other treatments for Patrick but nothing worth the risks as they would increase the size of his spleen (which is already too big) and can have some risks with clotting.  Plus...they can make him turn into a hazy lazy little boy....or a monster of a little boy....two things we just couldn't have.


Charleston doctors ran for TRAPs and it was inconclusive as one element in his testing was on the borderline and the lab left it up for doctors to make the clinical diagnosis. NIH ran another test and discovered he does not have TRAPS or Mediterranean Familial Fever.  NIH has decided to enter him into a clinical trial and had his whole genome exome sequencing completed along with Andy and I.  We won't see any connections to this for another year.  We return to NIH for further monitoring in the summer.

And so, my friends, the fevers continue...