Saturday, August 13, 2005

Doctor's Appointments, Doctor's Appointments

This month Clare has a slew of doctor's appointments. Besides her weekly OT sessions, she has six doctor's appointments. It also happens to be the first month of Shawn's new job, so he was in New Jersey for 2.5 days one week and in Seattle for 6 days another week! Then add onto that Jamie came down with strep throat (high temp of 104.3 - eek!) and seven days after being on amoxycillin, he broke out in hives from head to toe. Turns out he is allergic to amoxycillin, just like his Daddy. The doctor switched his antibiotic, but he was "speckled" for days! So it's been a busy month.

The good thing about all these doctor's appointments is that we're basically getting a review of all Clare's systems. She saw the pediatrician and was updated on her vaccinations. Other than not laughing and squealing, he said she was fairly on-track developmentally for a 4-month old. Then we met her Ears, Nose, & Throat doctor for the first time. He examined her ears, nose, and throat (surprise surprise!) and said everything looked fine. Our main visit for this appointment was to have her tongue examined, since she is tongue-tied. We discussed the option of "releasing" it (a nice to way to say "clipping"). Her ENT doctor is all for releasing her tongue soon, especially since Clare may have speech difficulties due to the Williams. We don't need something else to hinder the process. However, we don't know if Clare will need an antibiotic before having any procedure, so she did not get her tongue released that day. We will follow up in a month after she's seen the cardiologist and release it then, if the cardiologist gives her approval. I want to have it done early because if we wait until Clare is older than she will have to be under general anesthesia to have it released. If we do it in the next couple months, the doctor can just use a local anesthestic. The ENT doctor also wants Clare to have hearing tests every six months, so we scheduled her first one for October. He explained that with some genetic conditions, the hearing can decline as the person gets older.

This coming week is Clare's first visit with the pediatric opthamologist, a new endocrinologist, and her follow-up echo and cardiology appointment. So I will continue this post after we see all those doctors.

Our last visit is at the end of the month with the geneticist. He has not seen Clare since she was diagnosed at 6 weeks old.

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