My crazy girls

I got a nice giggle this afternoon when I came home from school. In my mail was the new patient registration form I was to bring to Sophie's 1st appointment with our new ENT doctor LAST WEDNESDAY. Alice had a new patient appointment that morning too, but we still haven't received her paperwork yet. Idiots.

I liked the new ENT, she was really nice. The audiologists there were absolutely wonderful with the girls and somehow got Alice to be nice and cooperative, which for someone in their position is nearly impossible. Sophie's hearing test was the same as her two previous ones. Mild loss in the holey ear and negative pressure in the other ear. I have never had it explained to me so well before, but I actually understand what is going on in her poor little Eustachian tubes now. They are not going to patch her holey drum because at this point her hole is helpful. The other drum gets drawn back due to the negative pressure. This causes the ears not to drain properly and irritation and redness to the drum. Also ear infections, but we haven't had that problem in a while, which means her tube is opening some, but not well. She has to get tested every six months to allow it time to improve on its own. Hopefully it will. They'll patch her hole when her other ear gets better. If it doesn't, well I guess we'll cross that bridge when...

Alice showed slightly less than normal hearing, but it's hard to get a measurable read on a child her age. Combine that with the wax and possible tubes still in her ears, well, I'm not concerned and neither was anyone else. She went in because of her sleep apnea. The ENT was not at all surprised to hear my concerns and agreed that her symptoms sounded pretty classic. She was so convinced with my personal description she is not going to make us go through any sleep studies. She is going to have surgery at Riley to remove her tonsils and adenoids. We still haven't been given a date, but it will be fairly soon. The doctor said that 95+% of the time that alone will cure the apnea. Though I am not real keen on the whole surgery, aftermath, or night in the hospital, I am confident that this will help her.

Finally, because everyone needs their fair share of doctor time- I had to call our family doctor on Saturday night because Lucy is a mystifying wondrous little creature. Since she was 2 months old she has slowly had the weirdest things wrong with her. Even though I have done my best to blow off her blue and purple toes to being something else, it simply cannot be any longer. She had an episode last week where her lower legs, feet, and toes turned bright red, swollen, and were very warm. She started to get really mottled and broken out on her torso and face. She fussed and cried in pain. I really don't think I have ever heard her cry like that. I was about as close to going to the ER as I could have been, without going. My first thought was that the Y childcare had given her something with peanuts, I didn't know what was going on with her. I called them and, of course, they hadn't given her anything, so why was she breaking out and red?

After she finally started to calm down, her legs and feet turned back to a reddish purple color. They've gone purple on and off since she was born, but everyone always told me she was young or her feet were cold and blah blah blah. I knew the most reasonable explanations and shrugged it off as such. Except now she's 14 months old and she should be able to maintain a foot temperature under her socks well enough to keep her feet a nice shade of pink. Anyway, she seemed well and I watched her all night but decided she was probably fine. Saturday her legs really started to turn purple and I finally called the doc. Crazy or not, I couldn't keep shrugging it off as nothing. She said it sounded like vasospasms. She mentioned poor circulation, which of course was my thought behind it all. I wasn't too concerned with poor circulation in a child when children tend to have poorer circulation. She then mentioned the heart and how sometimes defects can cause problems like this. We talked about it a little and basically when she goes in for her 15 month well check in a couple of weeks they are going to order an echocardiogram for her just to be sure that everything looks ok. However, crazy as we all know I am, I began Googling. This is always a bad idea. I know that. Does it stop me? Of course not. I looked at several things about congenital heart defects in young children. Don't worry I only looked at sites that seemed knowledgeable. Anything on www.wanna-freak-yourself-out-about-heart-defects.com I skipped over. I am trying to connect dots and the fact that she's had respiratory issues, abnormal CBC's, poor growth at her last check-up, poor circulation, etc-it all could draw a line to a cardiac problem. I am not purposefully trying to freak myself out, but it's hard not to read this stuff and see what I can see and not get a little worked up. So anyway the year of no doctors or surgeries is looking a little bit like the ship sailed and left us behind.