Doctor Visits

This is the latest post in the series of William, grace and Juliet's journey with hypophosphatasia.  And now adding Emily to the list.

I've gotten the best update on the hpp front, Alice does indeed have Emily's (and my) strand of hypophosphatasia, but the endocrinologist does not believe that either of them are suffering from symptoms.  So, the medication is not indicated for either of them! 

This does leave the question of what is causing Emily's crashing.  We will explore that with the doctor at her appointment in November.  Also, she has sent down lab orders, so that if Emily does crash at school, we can go straight to the lab and have her tested.

So, I'm removing Emily from the hpp list above, but I'll try to post on what we find, when we find it.

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At the tail end of summer I made appointments for Alice and Emily to see the optometrist for their yearly visit.  Emily's eyes are still perfect, they don't need to see her for another year.  Alice's eyes changed a little, so she picked out some new frames.  I did have him check for pressure on the optical nerve and calcium build up, but they were both in the clear.

He did diagnose Alice with something called divergence excess.  From what I understand, the muscles in one of her eyes are not working as hard as the other eye.  So, she has to undergo therapy for 12 weeks.  We weren't able to go in weekly, since their only appointments for therapy are on Tuesday, so Alice was given 'homework' to do three times a week between appointments.  This was her first therapy session:

Sadly, this appointment was during the second week of school, the day right after her (and Emily's) 6 month dental cleaning appointment.  So, we've logged half a dozen doctor appointments so far, and it's still the first month of school.

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Labor day weekend is a four day event for my children, so on Friday, my mom came with us to find some garage sales!  Since we were out, we swung by to pick up William's new frames (the old ones met their demise on the playground a few weeks ago.)  We ended up back in their office at the end of the day for a quick adjustment, before the holiday weekend.

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Grace failed her hearing screening at her yearly pediatrician appointment.  I'm still amazed that they had the audacity to fail her with all of the issues their machine was encountering.  Luckily for me, William is on a 9 month visit with an ENT, to keep an eye on his ear tubes, so I just added her to that appointment.

William didn't need to be tested, he just wanted to try too.

She passed with flying colors, and does not need to be followed.  William on the other hand still has  his tubes that were put in in Dallas, and they are showing no signs of coming out.  In March, if they are still in place, he will have to have them surgically removed. = (  That's over six months away, so I'm hopeful that we can avoid another surgery.

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On Friday that same week (which means two Grand Rapids trips in one week. ew) Grace had her sleep study.  So, after a rushed dinner, Grace and I packed up and headed to the hospital.  It's a very desolate place compared to the daytime hours!

It will be a sad day for me when we walk across this bridge and no one wants to climb along the railing.

Once we were all checked in, Grace got ready for bed and picked Moana to watch while she was being connected to the machine.

It wasn't all bad, she was given a variety of snacks to munch on while the tech worked.

Ready to go!

We finished up the movie, and somehow she was out like a light.  The tech only had to fuss at her once over the speaker to keep her cannula in, and only came in once to adjust something.  It was a good night for her.

At about 6am they gave us a wake up call and we had to get ready to go.  We rinsed out the wax/gel stuff as best we could in the shower. Then  we explored parts of the hospital that we'd never been to in search of breakfast!  We were given $12 in gift certificates, so we both ate well.  Grace was in much better form than I was at that time of day. = )

I just received the call yesterday, that her results came back normal!  So, we will still meet with the pulmonologist in December, but probably not again until there is another concern. = )

We have no appointments scheduled for this week, which I had to double check, because I was in disbelief!  I think we are slow for a while, but it never stays slow for long.

later days

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