On Bended Knees, Childhood Nephrotic Syndrome

I know that a lot of folks pray real hard when things are going wrong in their lives, but not so much when their everdays are running smoothly…I’m the opposite. I have been blessed so deeply by God, and further blessed with the gift to recognize all that He’s given me, and it’s during the very smooth everydays that I find myself talking to Him the most. It’s when the hardships come along that I struggle with keeping that dialogue open between my Father and I. I think it’s because I have difficulty asking for help…although I know that He wants to help me.

Our three year old, D’Angelo, has been diagnosed with Childhood Nephrotic Syndrome, which is a set of symptoms that point to kidney problems, specifically Minimal Change Disease or MCD, which is most commonly associated with Nephrotic Syndrome (the most common form of an uncommon occurence, since kidney disease in children occurs in less that one percent of kids). Healthy kidneys clean the blood by filtering out excess water, salt, and waste products from food. They also keep protein in the blood, which helps the blood soak up water from the tissues. Kidneys with damaged filters leak protein into the urine and, as a result, not enough protein is left in the blood to soak up the water – which in turn moves from the blood into the tissues and causes swelling.

So, that’s it in a nutshell…the cause is unknown (just like his Kawasaki Disease), it’s not connected to his Kawasaki Disease (which is what we originally thought), it’s not curable (but is treatable)…oh yeah, and my heart hurts. The treatment is a steroid called Prednisone, accompanied by Tagamet to keep the Prednisone from making him sick. There are side effects, the least of which are us having panic attacks at the thought of all the side effects! Swelling of his face…because the swelling caused by the disease just wasn’t quite enough, increased irritability…check, hyperactivity…check, and sleeplessness…check. I don’t even want to get into the long-term side effects, freaks me out. He began what will be months of his prednisone treatments day before yesterday and I can already recognize some of those immediate side effects.

In short, this blog entry is both my explanation of my lack of blog activity…as well as my request that you help me out with this little prayer dilemna I have. If you all could just keep our precious D’Lo in your prayers…I will certainly be humbling myself before God as I beg Him for my child’s healing. I will be doing my best to keep up to date entries on his progress, and I appreciate each and every knee bended on my son’s behalf. Love ya’ll.