Full Plate

Actually, I'm too full still to talk about the holiday! Our plates are full with doctor's appointments this week and next.

We had our appointment with the Pediatrician Monday and the Neurologist yesterday morning & I just wanted to bring everyone up to speed.

Pediatrician:
He was pleased with LJ's progress. It's slow, but it's progress for him. He was happy with his weight gain. Folks, he's 15lb 10 oz. His head is 41 1/2 cm. (It's on the small side, but Lewis must take after his mom. I have a pea-sized head!). And he is 25% on the charts. Nate chaperoned us and he asked the pediatrician during the check-up whether he had any "vaxines". Nate also gave his nurse a pretty hard time when it came to giving Lewis his 6-month shots. Here's the lowdown:

Nurse administers first shot. Lewis screams and cries.
Nurse administers second shot on LJ's other thigh. He screams and cries and sheds big crocodile tears.
Nate hollers at nurse "That's enough. No more vaxines. Don't hurt my baby brother! That's enough!"
Nurse explains to Nate that these shots are important for Lewis. They will make sure he stays healthy and doesn't get any bad diseases.

When we got home Nate and I had another conversation regarding vaccines. It went like this:
"Mommy, I don't like vaxines. Medicine is gentler. Medicine is better. But I don't like the grape kind anymore. I like the banana kind." Now I know which medicine is the grape one...but I'm clueless where he got the banana idea. Any opinions are welcome.

The day went on and LJ did fine after the shots.

Neurologist:
He felt Lewis is at about the 3-4 month old marker developmentally. He tested his foot reflexes on a hard surface and found that the placing/stepping are intact but a little slow. Again, totally consistent with his developmental delays. He also mentioned that Lewis seems to exhibit slight hypotonicity.

I discussed the course of treatment regarding LJ's eyes with him too. He defers to the Pediatric Ophthalmologist but felt that the earlier the intervention (ie surgically correcting the muscles) the better off he would be...we don't want him to end up with Amblyopia (a disorder of the eye that results in poor or no vision). He mentioned that some folks treat strabismus with botox??? and or botox in combination with the surgery. Yes folks, long before botox was used to treat wrinkles, docs use it to relax the overactive muscles in order to bring the eye back into proper alignment. Can I get a little of that?? not in my eye, but around my eyes would be nice.

Last and not least, he would like to have another MRI done between 8-9 months old to study the gray and white matter. I Would LOVE to coordinate the anesthesia from the eye surgery with that of MRI. It makes me nervous thinking that all this progress he has made will have been for nothing being laid up with more surgery. And it makes me doubly nervous thinking about putting him under with general anesthesia twice in one month!

Anyways, next week we meet with the stomach surgeon. We're pretty sure it's a foregone conclusion that there is too much scar tissue and that he won't want to operate again. That's the GI doc's verdict at least. We'll also be taking a course on infant massage to see if we can help Noodles relax a little and feel more comfortable after his feedings.