Finally, when Isabelle was 2, doctors diagnosed the problem, “Kidneys are supposed to filter out the bad stuff and keep the good proteins in our blood that keep us healthy, but she loses all of them,” Jamie said.
Doctors tried prednisone therapy. Jamie and her husband Dan, an investigator with the Kearney Police Department, took Isabelle to a nephrologist in Omaha. Doctors did a kidney biopsy. They tried several different therapies. “They were running out of ideas. We stayed up late doing a lot of research. We were at a loss,” Jamie said.
Finally, after online searching, they took her to a children’s hospital in Texas. They’ve also consulted nine or 10 specialists depending on Isabelle’s situation and have found a pediatric nephrologist they like in Denver.
Duringthe last 13 years, doctors have tried every remedy they can think of, but nothing worked. They tried steroids. They tried seven individual 12-week therapies. None worked.
They even thought she might go into remission at some point, but she hasn’t. “It’s all trial and error,” Jamie said.
“Doctors in Kearney are great, but they don’t have a pediatric case like Isabelle’s. She doesn’t follow anything by the book,” Jamie added.
“When she was about 4, I had to give her a medication, but I was pregnant with my son and I couldn’t touch it because it might cause birth defects, so I had to squirt it directly into her mouth,” Jamie said.
