Frustrating appointment today

I mentioned in my post last night that Nate is sick and his 3 year check up was this morning. Poor Nate (and poor Mama) could barely sleep last night for sneezing and coughing, and I'm guessing his throat hurts too. The doctor checked him out this morning and didn't see any infections and thinks its a cold. So there's nothing I can do for him, basically. He's pretty miserable today, and I just hope this doesn't last as long as his recent illness!

Nate is 36 inches tall (about 20th percentile) and 36.5 pounds (about 80th percentile). His doctor really frustrated me. He asked if Nate could give a urine sample. Um, no. I usually can't even get him to pee in the potty. He then asked how many words Nate can say. I said he can pretty much say anything, and he's putting sentences together--at least 500 words. A few minutes later while he was examining Nate, he said, "So you really think he has at least 500 words?" Yes. He says, "So, this whiny, baby stuff he's doing now....?" I said, "He's sick. He's whiny." I could have smacked him.

The doctor asked if Nate had been to an eye doctor at all, and I said I needed to make him an appointment with an optometrist before school starts. He said he would prefer him to see an opthamologist. Okay, I've been researching this for a few months. On the one hand, an opthamologist is good for kids with spina bifida to see because the kids sometimes have related eye issues (but there's no reason to suspect Nate has those issues). On the other hand, two occupational therapists have told me that when Nate is looking at a picture, he looks at the top and not the bottom. They think it may be one of his "sensory" issues, and who knows, it could have something to do with his delay in walking. Like the ground looks really far away or something. At our last session with our genius OT, she suggested a specific behavioral optometrist, so I had decided to make an appointment with him. I explained all this to the doctor. He says, "I don't know much about sensory issues. How can I say this politically correctly ... that's kind of a fringe diagnosis, not really accepted by the medical community yet." Great, another person who doesn't believe in Sensory Processing Disorder. It doesn't really matter if this guy believes its a real thing or not, I KNOW it is. So I dropped the issue, but I'll do as I had originally planned and take Nate to the behavioral optometrist. This guy has met Nate a handful of times, and his therapists and I understand his issues better, M.D. or not.

I told the doctor I had some concerns about Nate's mouth. For at least a couple of months now, Nate has been drooling excessively (his shirt is constantly wet), he's needed his pacifier 24/7, he's been chewing on his pacifier (something he's never done before), and when he doesn't have the paci in his mouth he's chewing on his fingers. It's like he's teething, except he already has all of his teeth. A couple of his therapists have hypothesized that this is a sensory thing, that he's going through this "oral" stage that all babies go through, just really late. That explains everything except for the drooling. So I report this to the doc, and he says, "Eh, I'll look in his mouth, but he's doing this because the new baby is coming." Huh? First of all, Nate doesn't understand this baby thing enough to regress just yet. I can see if after Georgia gets here, he needs his paci more. That makes sense. But why is Nate drooling like a faucet because he has a baby sister coming? That does not make sense.

Moving on, I brought up the "milk bump" on Nate's face. That's what the doctor called it last time I asked about it, and he told me he would remove it today. It's been there since January, and it should have gone away by now. The procedure was as simple as popping a pimple, but Nate was already feeling bad, and he pretty much freaked out. He lost his paci in the floor, freaked out even more. It wasn't fun.

When Nate was about a year old, we joined this Duke University Neural Tube Defects study. They ask you questions and get a blood sample. The goal is to eventually figure out the cause of SB. Anyway, we did all that was required of us a couple years ago, except we did not get a blood sample from Nate. He was just too little and chubby and we'd had bad experiences with getting blood, so I told them we'd do it later. Recently they contacted me and asked if we could send in the kit they gave us. Well, I have misplaced the kit. So I just mentioned today to the doctor that we are part of this study, and I'd like to bring Nate back to get a blood sample for it. He said we could just do a finger prick today and go ahead and get the sample. Okay.

So the nurse comes in and does the finger prick, and Nate is now really screaming. She goes to put the bandaid on, and I asked if it was a latex free bandaid. She said yes, then asked if Nate is allergic to latex. I said he is on precaution for latex because he has spina bifida and they are all on precaution. She says, "Cause I'm wearing latex gloves." Then she goes to pop off one of her gloves. I said, "STOP. Do not take off that glove, because then the powder will be in the air, and he can inhale that." That's actually more dangerous than him just touching latex. She said, "Next time when the nurse who brings you into the room asks if he has any allergies, tell them about the latex." I said, "I DID!!!" Oh, they didn't mark it on his chart. All the while, Nate is screaming.

Then she says she's going to go run the labs and walks out of the room. Okay, she obviously doesn't understand why she took the blood, so I hauled my screaming child out the door because we weren't waiting any longer. The nurse is kind of scratching her head and asked what this blood was for. I told her, and she said this blood wouldn't last long enough for that purpose. SO WE JUST DID THAT FOR NOTHING. She was still talking to me, and I just walked out the door. Nate was practically inconsolable.

Ugh. So I'm not going to take either of the kids to that doctor anymore. He just gets on my nerves. This is the second time he's ticked me off. I'll try one of the other doctors in the practice, and if that doesn't work out, there are plenty of pediatricians to choose from in Louisville.

Nate came home and took an early nap. He's laying on the couch, coughing and sneezing and being generally pitiful right now. I just hate it when he's sick.