The "Good Witch"

This will be short, as it was a pretty intense and busy day. Both the clinical picture and the test results were enough to get the Lyme doc to start treatment. Xian's Lyme result showed a mild positive (not enough for a CDC positive, but enough for the doctor to begin treatment based on the whole picture), and she tested strongly positive for one of the Lyme coinfections (something known as babesiosis or babesia), which was pretty much the clincher, since it doesn't appear you get a coinfection all on its own. The interesting thing is that this coinfection is known as a sort of North American form of malaria (it's a protazoa that infects the blood), and one of the big signs is...heavy night sweats, which has been a big problem for Xian ever since she first got sick. The doctor also suspects she may have a couple of additional coinfections, but she said that one of them has a number of variants so it can be hard to get a positive unless the test is specific.

She did a physical exam of Xian and picked up on a few things that no other doctor has made any sense of, if they even noticed. She did a couple of balance/equilibrium tests--while I've noticed the differences in Xian's play and figured that her lack of climbing was due to some problem in that area, it was good to see it confirmed as a 'real' issue. She also noticed (and named--but I've forgotten already what it's called) Xian's 'crunchy' sounds when she bends her arms or you hold her hand, and noticed the dilated pupils and 'off' colouring (circles under her eyes etc.), and her weak pulse (Xian's slowed heart rate came up as an issue during anaesthetic). And of course, noticed the language/memory/neuro issues. I told her how Xian earlier had been interpreting her illness, the "bad spell" given to her by a "bad witch"---and she told Xian that she would be the "good witch Glinda" (of Wizard of Oz fame---Xian happened to bring a little "Dorothy" doll with her) and would help to break her spell with some medicine. Interestingly....as confused and 'scrambled' as Xian is now, she was very cooperative and friendly with the doctor---and once we returned to our hotel room she was wanting me to give her some of the supplements (vitamins, probiotics etc.) we'd gotten from the doctor. (We pick up the antibiotics at the pharmacy tomorrow). So, I'm sure she was aware of that conversation---and the mind is a powerful thing, so probably a helpful little 'seed' to plant.

Hoping everything goes smoothly with medication pick up and getting us to the Clipper and to Victoria. We had a harder day today with getting food into her and she's tired so sounds/light seems to be bothering her more. Will try to take things as easy as possible...but looking forward to being back at "Grandma's house".