Lots has been going on recently in the medical aspect of our world. We returned for what I hope is our last visit to the Georgetown NICU follow-up clinic two weeks ago. They were pleased with their progress but advised a comprehensive developmental evaluation. I called to schedule this unaware of what was involved. Apparently, it's a multi-specialty appointment with a developmentalist, occupational therapist, physical therapist, speech pathologist and child psychologist. The appointment will last at least 4 HOURS! I went ahead and made the appointment since the first available wasn't until the middle of April but I'm thinking this might be a little much. We are already linked into services in our county and our PT is happy with how they are doing. I guess we'll see how they are doing over the next couple weeks but I may end up canceling...
Paige went back to ENT last week for another hearing evaluation. She failed her hearing screen again and they are thinking this is due to the chronic fluid they are seeing in her ears. Her balance has been a concern of our's for a while, too. She has much more strength and support with her walking but falls all the time and often staggers like she's drunk. While she has only had one ear infection in her life, these two other reasons are indications for myringotomy tubes. I talked with the ENT Nurse Practitioner for a while and she told me that we have two options. We can go for the tubes, immediately clear the fluid and hopefully get improvement. Or we can wait until the weather warms a bit, recheck her one more time and gain some confidence about this being the right decision. Well, when I called just to see when the first available surgery slot was, they told me April 20th. So the decision is made. We booked the surgery for that day but will have her seen again and rescreened two weeks before (when its hopefully warmer and she isn't congested) to make sure nothing has improved before going forward. Of course, this means a prescreen appt, surgery date and then follow-up appts and hearing screens which equals an excessive amount of time off work!
Andrew also had another doctor's appointment last week with the pediatrician. You may remember back to my previous post about him having lost close to 2 pounds between his 12 and 15 month well check. Well we went back last week for another weight check and found that he hasn't really gained any weight since his 15 month check... He has also been up to his old tricks of being up all night (although we've had some better nights this week. Thank God!) with what seems to be pain and having abnormal stooling patterns. He will have harder stools and then HUGE (and I mean HUGE) very loose, foul smelling, head to toe, throw away clothes and bath required for all stools. And that's not exaggerhating. He's also eating like we are starving him. He bangs on our cabinets for food, has several helpings at each meal, and even daycare is commenting on the excesive amount he is eating. Dr. Arnold decided to do some stool studies on Friday and the one that tested for fecal fat was abnormal. What does this mean? That he has some problem with absorption. So now we are anxiously awaiting some recommendations for Gastroenterology about what our next step(s) will be.
So needless to say, we've got lots going on right now. And everyone told us that it all got much easier after their first year! But we do have some fun stuff planned this weekend -- their first swim lessons are on Saturday morning (at 9am for the next ten weeks - what were we thinking?!?!) and then their first birthday party on Sunday! Hopefully this will all be a good distraction while we wait to figure out what in the world is going on with Andrew.... We'll keep you posted.
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