Doctors, doctors, doctors!

We have seen multiple doctors over the last week or so.  Am I surprised by this?  Nope.  Not at all.

First of all, we took Brookelyn to her post op follow up appointment with Dr. Blotter.  I was really nervous he was going to tell me her tubes were clogged again.  If that was the case I was going to throw my hands in the air in exasperation because I had no idea what we were going to do.  Turns out, we finally had nothing to worry about!  After 2 sets of tubes, 3 months, 2 x a day ear drops for 3 months, and multiple trips to see Dr. Blotter, BOTH tubes are finally free & clear!  This is very, very good news!  We are continuing drops until tomorrow but only as a precaution.  Dr. Blotter wants to see her again about November to see if they are still working.  Cross your fingers for us!

We also took Brookelyn to Dr. Clarke (pediatrician) for her 1 year well check.  Little sister is a whopping 25.12 lbs and 30 3/4 inches long!  This puts her in the 95th percentile in both categories!  Yes, we do have big babies at this house!  He was asking if she talks, etc.  I was telling him about all the words she can say now -mama, dada, da-dog, boo-book, sissy - sam, no, uh oh, ba ba - bottle, na-nash, ta da - meaning cha da (Those that know my mother know exactly what this is.  For those that don't, it's a silly dance she does with the kids.)-  Dr. Clarke said that she's actually fairly advanced for her age linguistically because most kids only say about 5 words by the time they are 18 months old.  Guess this girl is going to be just like her big sister!  Some other things Brooke is doing include
Walks holding onto things (actually she's done this for several months now)
She took a single step by herself yesterday before plopping down and crawling across the room
Feeds herself with a spoon
Opens cabinets and drawers and pulls everything out of them
Likes to make "toilet soup" when her siblings leave the bathroom door open
Eats mostly table food (we still have some baby food we're trying to use up but she's not liking it too much)
Loves water in a sippy cup
Follows her older siblings around and wants to do exactly what they do (I think I posted pics of her trying to play XBOX with her brother)
Loves standing up in the tub when she thinks I'm not looking
Grabs the washcloth away from me & eats it every time it gets near her grasp
Follows the dog around and pets her gently on the head
Loves to look at pictures on the wall and point at the people in the picture
Loves to eat...everything...often

I finally heard back from the Rheumatologist I went and saw a few weeks back.  He did x rays on my hands and feet and did some blood work.  My x rays looked good.  My blood work tested for parvo (yes, like dogs get - but people get it too and in adults it manifests as arthritis symptoms for six months), a vitamin D level and the rheumatoid arthritis marker.  All the blood work came back normal.  He said my vitamin D levels were a bit low, just not low enough to cause my symptoms.  Basically he told me that other than pain in my joints he has no idea what's wrong with me.  He started me on a prescription of Plaquenil.  I guess this use to be used as an antibiotic but now it's used to treat arthritis.  Apparently it takes a good 4-5 months to get in your system really good and start working so I have a follow up appointment at the end of September.  He also wants to do an MRI on one of my joints.  He said that he wouldn't MRI all my joints, just the one that hurts the most the most often.  However, an MRI is at least $1500 and my share after insurance would be about $300.  So now I just have to decide if I have an extra $300 to throw at this pain expedition & whether or not I want to deal with this.  Right now I'm kind of thinking the MRI will have to wait.

On Monday Nash got bit by a big German Short-haired dog.  We were visiting my nephews at their place to drop off a birthday present.  Nash was riding my nephew's bike down the sidewalk and had stopped and turned around.  On his way back to us on the bike this big dog came out and grabbed him on his arm and bit him.  Nash screamed bloody murder and dropped the bike and started back to us.  Travis and I didn't see the dog coming or else the dog wouldn't have made it to Nash in the first place.  Amazingly, the dog didn't bit a hole in his long sleeved shirt.  When we pulled his shirt sleeve up however there was a nasty bite.  You can see the two top canines and all four top teeth between the canines.  Where the top teeth met the bottom teeth there was a big bloody/bruised bite mark.  The lady that owned the dog came out and was talking to us.  She said the dog has had all its shots, but who really knows.  She was like "He's usually pretty nice I don't know what got into him."  Then she tells us that her front door is broken and doesn't latch tight so the dog can just get out whenever.  She asked if there was something she could do and I asked her if she could get us a bandaid (Travis's brother & sister in law weren't home yet when this happened).  The lady told us that she didn't think she had any and wouldn't even go inside to check.  I was so extremely mad for several reasons 1-I didn't want to be at the place we were at in the first place, 2-Nash got bit, 3-The lady wouldn't get us a bandaid!  4-Travis was way too nice to this lady and told her that it wasn't that bad this time but she might want to consider getting rid of the dog because next time it might be worse.  When we were at the dr. for Brooke's well check I asked the dr. what we needed to watch for to make sure it doesn't get infected.  Now we're on infection watch.

I'm hoping that this isn't a sign of how our summer will go!  I'm crossing my fingers that we're getting things out of the way now so that our summer can continue on dr. free!

And speaking of summer, only 1/2 day of school left and our vacation begins!  Today the kids came home and told me they had found out who their teacher would be next year.  They are both very excited.  I'm a bit nervous about Nash's situation.  He had been assigned the teacher I wanted (the one Sam had when she was in 2nd grade) but apparently she's moving over to 5th grade & they have to hire a new teacher.  I'm crossing my fingers it isn't a first year teacher.  I can be sympathetic to a first year teacher but Nash has some issues going on at school and I'm afraid if he gets a first year teacher it will be disastrous for him.  Guess we'll hope for the best!