Tuesday, September 25, 2007

What's Your Name?

I copied this from another blog... what's your name???

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car), Linus Camry
2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie), Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Chocolate Chip
3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name), K-Farr
4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal), Blue Panda
5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born), Grace St. Louis
6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first), Farke
7. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink), The Brown Malibu Pineapple
8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers), Charles Charles
9. STRIPPER NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy), White Shoulder Hershey Almond
10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names ), Marie Michael
11. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter), Spitznagel St. Louis
12. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower). Autumn Carnation
13. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”) Pear Aqua Shorts
14. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree), Mini wheat Dogwood
15. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”), The Reading Breezy Tour

Friday, September 21, 2007

Children's Hospital -Week #2

Okeedokee... Monday we went to Orthopedics. I love our orthopedist. He is WONDERFUL. However, we did end up waiting an hour to see him, which through off the rest of the day and the OT appointment at the hospital afterwards. My mother was with us and pretty upset we had to wait so long. She was threatening to make snide comments when the doc came... I had to restrain her. I like this doc! She ended up behaving herself. :)

Brady's PT gave me a list of things to go over with Ortho, notably his hands -- he tends to keep his thumbs in at rest. He does open his hands all the way, pick things up and use normally, but they definitely need stretching out. His left is worse than his right and sometimes prohibits him from putting food in his mouth. He recommended hard splints to wear to bed. We went to the OT at the hospital and they made one right there and then - how cool! Brady wore it with no complaining. We ran out of time to make the other one, so we have to go back now NEXT week (Week #3 for those keeping track) to make the second one. It only takes about half an hour. While we're there we'll get his blood and urine test for calcium.

The Orthopedist felt his radial ulnar synostosis was fine, not prohibitive to him in any way yet. His hamstrings were a little tight, but both he and Brady's PT feel Brady is going through a growth spurt right now which could account for that. His PT also feels Brady's ankles are weak. His knees are fine, very strong. The orthopedist prescribed UCGLs which I think are a hard plastic brace for his shoe to support his ankle. They are not covered by insurance and are $250 each. Apparently insurance doesn't cover anything below the ankle. What?!?!?!??!

No biggee - the doc wasn't pushing for them right now (Since he's not walking or attempting to - we're still working on the crawling) and the Brace shop people said if he prescribed SPOs they would be covered. SO I will look into all that. Plus I am finishing up an insurance plan that would cover some out-of-pocket medical expenses, so we might be okay anyway.

Which brings us to Thursday... when we went to the Ophthalmologist. Yes, Brady got in a bit of trouble for taking his glasses off! But the doc did say she doesn't feel the glasses are really helping his eyes turning in anyway. They both turn in at different times, which is good because it means he is using both eyes. His vision is actually fine. She did say she thinks he probably will need surgery to stop them from turning in for cosmetic reasons. Basically, he will feel better about himself, give him confidence, it will aid him in being more social if he isn't self conscious about his eyes. I understand and agree. It's nothing that will happen soon, and they adjusted his glasses and we got a strap so if the glasses do seem to help over these next three months, maybe we won't think about surgery.

On top of all this, I think he has allergies. I think they spiraled into a cold, which we all have now.

I will write more later- but since I chose to read all the blogs before I wrote has led me to a late night when I am EXHAUSTED!

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Busy, busy, busy

It's been a little insane over here (I am noticing how many times I start a post like that...). We started the new school year and with that all the other new things -- a new Sports season (soccer), a new Cub Scout year (Webelos 1), a new Programming year for me with the PTO (scheduling and finalizing programs for the school), a new CCD class, a new homework/play/bed schedule, etc.

And on top of that, we have all of Brady's annual visits coming up. Within two weeks, Brady and I (and Grandma) have made/will make five separate visits to Children's Hospital, plus his normal therapy appointments (which Teresa has graciously pointed out to me is seven hours a week), plus a weight check at his pediatrician's. So... if I haven't called you back -- you know I'm not screening your call!

Our first visit was to Nutrition, where we had to see a new Nutritionist since ours is still on maternity leave from March (she comes back in November). We did like her-- she added more Polycose to his food, suggested we get insurance to pay for the Polycose (doing that right now!) and suggested we use the food processor on our dinner and give it to Brady for his, adding more calories and giving him more texture. Only thing, is that Brady is in a "No Food" strike right now because his two-year-old molars are coming in -- Brady's teeth are always the one thing he gets early or on time! He is taking his bottle so I'm not worried about him losing weight, and I think one just punctured through the other day so we are probably almost done.

Last Thursday Brady had his echo -- we have been going every six months because his heart problems seemed to stop escalating. This was no different -- no changes since March! Yeah! We don't go back til next March now. The only pain we had that day was waiting for the doctor because he was called to an emergency. We ended up not leaving until rush-hour traffic was starting and we were sans Grandma this trip. Looong day -- but good results. :)

Friday we went to Genetics. The ever-witty Teresa summed up the visit nicely for me: "What have you been doing? That's great, keep it up. Bye!" We love our geneticist so this visit is always pretty painless. She did recommend for Brady to see a Neurologist, only because he hasn't yet, not for any specific reason. Also, she wants his hearing tested again since it hasn't been done since he was five months old. She was pleased with his abilities, happy he was seeing PT three times a week plus the other EI appointments, and thought he was extremely cute. :) She said she wanted to keep an eye on his growth because he was barely on the WS curves for both height and weight. She is also having the coordinator from the Williams Clinic at Children's contact me so we can get in on that, which would be fantastic. We would see all his doctors over a few days and hook up with other families.

Tomorrow we go to Orthopedics (his PT gave me a laundry list to go over with him) and then OT at the hospital for measurements for possible splints for his hands. Thursday we go to the Opthomologist, where Brady will probably get into big trouble for not wearing his glasses. Hopefully she will solve that problem for us!

We were able to hook up with Teresa and Shawn both Thursday and Friday while they were doing Clare's pre-op then surgery. Good to see them, but not for good reasons. Please send your prayers out to Clare for a speedy recovery. Check out her updates here: http://www.claresjourney.blogspot.com/