Appointments Today ~ Andrew and Sam

Thanks for the prayers as we took off for Charlotte today. We left Boone before 6:30 which gave us a "traffic cushion" and time to get a drive-thru breakfast! (And practice checking bsl and giving a shot before we got there!)

Thanks so much to Whitney, Lisa, and Laura for getting up at 4:00 a.m. to come and get us. Lisa and Laura took Sam to his eye check up, and Sam got a good report. He goes back in six months (August!). They found it with Ben's GPS, so we appreciate that he let us borrow that as we are not familiar with the area around Carolinas Medical Center at all.

Whitney went with Andrew and me to listen. To make this very short, Dr. Patel is quite sure the tests we repeated today and the ones we will get after letting the vaccine he got today have a few weeks will show Andrew has common variable immunodeficiency (CVID). He used the word "alarming" three times. Once because his IgG level is so low. Another time because his IgA level did not even show up. And I forgot the third time. If he shows a flat response to this vaccine - something repeated from when he was a baby, then the diagnosis will be CVID. This will mean replacement therapy. There are different drugs by different companies and two ways to do it. One is a monthly trip to the hospital for a 5+ hour IV infusion. The other is a shot at home weekly that takes 3-4 hours. This would probably be for the rest of his life (the very toughest thing to hear today, I think).

Anyway, we have more tests to run and more prayers to pray. This would help Andrew with his respiratory infections. I feel very thankful that he does not pick up everything that passes by him - he should with numbers like that. And I am really trying to stay on the thankful side of things. This is all new and confusing though we did learn a lot today. I think I will not read anything else today. Dr. Patel gave Andrew (not me but for me too, and I liked that) information to read.

I will send another note when we know more. I need to run and get Peter!

Thanks!