And back to the good news--clinic!

Yesterday was Nate's big clinic day. We only go to clinic once or twice a year, and we were especially interested in one particular test he was having, so it was going to be a big day. Sunday night I was rushing around getting everything ready for our trip to Nashville the next day, and I went to bed at midnight and fell asleep like a rock.

Then Georgia woke up screaming at 12:15. I settled her down, but everytime I left the room, the floor would barely crack and she'd start screaming again. Finally I crawled out of the room. 10 minutes later she woke up again. And this happened over and over for the next hour. I knew I had to get up at 6 to start getting ready for Nashville. I was starting to panic.

I took her to Blake to let him try to get her to sleep, but she did not want Daddy. She would climb up me, stiffen out, and just writhe around miserable. We decided she had an ear infection, which we had suspected for a few days. At 2 am, I put her in the car to take a drive, but she still wasn't going to sleep. I knew I wouldn't have time to take her to the pediatrician in the morning, so I decided to go ahead and take her to an urgent care place. Except I didn't know where one was, so I just drove around looking for one. I asked the GPS, and it took me on a wild goose chase for something that didn't exist. Then I found myself 3 minutes from Kosair Children's Hospital and even though I felt silly taking her to the ER for an ear infection, I was just that desperate.

Of course when I took her inside she was asleep! Ugh. Until they took her temperature rectally, and that woke her up. A couple doctors later, I found out that her ears were absolutely fine. No ear infection. Seriously? The doctor said what I was describing--sometimes inconsolable, stiffening out, screaming--sounded like a condition some babies her age develop where something (intestines?) restricts like a microscope? I was so tired I did not understand half of what she said, but she wanted an x-ray of Georgia's belly. I held her down while she screamed. The x-ray was clean.

So, they determined, she must just be teething. What? You mean I brought my baby to the ER for teething? Wow, I'll never live this down. But even worse, she was still screaming.

I got home at 5:15 am and laid down for 30 minutes before getting in the shower. Awesome. We stopped by the brace place to pick up Nate's new braces, then I had to stop by the hospital to have blood taken, and Alisa met us at Subway for breakfast. Blake had a test at work and couldn't go, so I was soooo glad Alisa went with me. Usually when Blake is driving, I'm the one climbing halfway into the backseat to find a dropped paci or fix Nate's movie or stop someone from hitting, but this time, that was Alisa's job. :)

We got to the hospital in time to eat at the children's hospital food court and spend a blissful 15 minutes with the trains. On the first floor they have a great train layout with buttons to push to make the trains go. This was the highlight of Nate's day, and he'll be asking to go back to the hospital for weeks just for that reason.

First up was the urodynamics. A couple months ago I called the urology nurse to talk about potty training, and I asked them to do this test to look at Nate's bladder function to see if there is any reason we should not try to potty train Nate. Since then, he has become continent with his bowels--yay! Even though he pees on the potty a lot, we haven't been pushing him to stay dry until this test to see if it was even possible. He's always had pretty good results with the test, so that's what we expected today. They inserted a catheter and some probes and slowly filled his bladder with liquid, including dye, so they could watch on a screen what his bladder looked like as it filled. With SB, some of the problems can be fluid backing up into the kidneys (reflux), high pressure bladder (which usually results in reflux), or loose muscles that cause leaking. I'm happy to report that Nate has none of that! His bladder looks great as it's filling. What's funny is, as he laid there on the table for this test, he was watching a train movie, and he fell asleep. Catheter and all. And this happens every time he has this test! Why doesn't he nap at home? Anyway, the only issue was that they fill him up a little past the normal capacity for his age (6 oz, fyi), but he doesn't automatically empty. However, it was very promising that when he reached that level of normal capacity, he started rousing from his nap and was obviously uncomfortable. That means he can to some extent feel when his bladder is full! They wanted to make sure he emptied all the way to see if he ever leaves any residual urine in the bladder (can cause infections) so they said they'd put a diaper on him and would weigh the diaper and cath him later to see what was left. I suggested instead to sit him on a potty with one of those measuring hats in it to see how much he peed himself, but I guess they're not used to kids peeing in a potty and don't have the tools for that? So she put the diaper on him ... and within an hour he peed so much his pants were soaked. Which is sad, but also happy! He peed! Anyway, the doctor was pleased with the urodynamics, and we decided to continue with potty training and to see where he is in 6 months at his next appointment. The doctor thinks he may need a schedule of sitting on the potty every 2-3 hours (which seems like too long to me) to help him stay dry in case he doesn't always know when he needs to. I think the nurse is very skeptical, but I think Nate is going to prove her wrong in 6 months. :) Very happy about this test.

Dr. Tulipan, the neurosurgeon, was happy that Nate isn't having any problems. I bragged on how smart he is and that he's running and jumping! Dr. Mencio is the orthopedic specialist, and as usual he asked, "Any problems? No? Okay, see you next year." I insisted he look at Nate's new braces since I had gone to all the trouble of picking him up that morning for him to see. I told him Nate's right foot turns out some, and he perked up and started looking for tibial torsion. He seemed almost disappointed to see straight legs. Those surgeons just want to operate.

We finally made it home by 9 pm, and I put Blake on Georgia duty so I could sleep. And I slept HARD. Speaking of that, it's time for me to go to bed and try to continue catching up on sleep.

By the way, thank you, everyone, for the very supportive words in response to my last post. It was good for me to write about it, and it also helps to read your kind comments. I'm feeling better every day. And very thankful for Nate's health, and Georgia's health, no matter how cranky she is.