Update on Therese

It's been awhile since I updated Therese's health. Her latest round of blood work was really helpful. Her doctor was really pleased. It is highly likely that she has Crohn's Disease, which can be remedied with a round of antibiotics (10 days this time, not seven months!). Before he draws that conclusion, though, Dr. P. has her on a yeast elimination diet to make sure that her problem is not a yeast allergy/intolerance. After not eating yeast for five days, Therese is praying it's Crohn's! More importantly, following the lead of the young man we know who has been our, um, inspiration/muse/mine canary in all of this, I asked Dr. P. to test Therese to see if she had an MTHFR gene mutation, which, sure enough, she does. I'm hoping this mutation could be the thing that finally explains her joint pain, but (when addressed) it definitely should explain her brain fog (which we really thought would clear up when she stopped using antibiotics and switched to probiotics, but so far no such luck).

As far as school, we have figured out that Therese should be all caught up by December (done with Geometry and with the rest of Freshman and most of Sophomore years, excluding Biology (her Bio course is actually designated for 10th graders anyway). By the end of next summer she should be completely brought up to speed where I want her to be. When all is said and done, she should be graduating in three years (on time) with enough time her senior year to do whatever independent study she might want to take on. Her end goal is the Honors Program at the University of St. Thomas (like her Mama and someone else we know). Her curriculum is perfectly crafted to take her where she wants to go, given that we are using this curriculum from St. Thomas Aquinas Academy. I don't enroll her in the Academy or have them do the grading, but I do use their syllabi and books for Therese. It's the perfect curriculum for her and she's been really happy with it.

So maybe there is light at the end of this tunnel for Therese. All we can do is wait and pray, which seems to have been our pattern for the longest time now.

ETA: I just realized that I didn't say anything about Therese's Mycoplasma level! Probably because it hasn't changed much at all...like only decreasing by a couple of tenths. We'll see what the next round of blood work says, though, after she's been on probiotics only.