August Appointments

I don't think I said anything about any of our doctor's appointments in August. It was a very busy month. On August 11, we went back for Bailey's 3 month followup appointment in Atlanta for her glasses. The next day Dad and I took them to the newborn followup clinic for their 18 month checkup. At this visit they have a psychologist do an evaluation to check their development. Their actual age was 21 months, 27 days and adjusted age was 18 months, 21 days. Wyatt scored the following:
Cognitively: 19 month old
Language receptive age: 16 month old
Language expressive age: 15 month old
This is suppose to mean Wyatt is at least 25% delayed in language skills and qualifies for speech therapy with early intervention.
Bailey scored the following:
Cognitively: 12 month old
Language receptive age: 7 month old
Language expressive age: 5 month old
We were encouraged to seek out services through early intervention. What a joke that is! Bailey is already receiving 2 hours of service a month with her "special instructor." They had a speech therapist come evaluate her, but she will not be seeing her. Her special instructor who is a vision therapist will work on her speech and all her other issues. She has never had any training in speech. It is the craziest thing I have ever heard or seen. We saw a different doctor this time. She asked if I had any concerns, and I asked about Wyatt chest and rib cage. I assumed that Wyatt might be released this time, and I want to know what we should do when he is older to clear him for any sports he might want to play. Oh that opened a can of worms. She went off on a tangent about how it could be restricting his breathing, and he may be crying when we put him to bed because of sleep apnea. She wanted him to see a pulmonologist and have a sleep study. I don't have to worry though because the social worker from the clinic never called to discuss anything about our visit that day. What a waste of money. If you have never seen his chest wall here is a picture.

I believe that his ribs were broken in the NICU, and they formed back abnormally. He had osteopenia so brittle bones were a problem back then. Who really knows what happened. We do know that it is not causing a problem now so we will not fix it. Another doctor said it would probably not cause any problems, but that he may want it fixed for cosmetic reasons. This is definitely something he will decide for himself. We would not put him through another unnecessary surgery. I think 4 surgeries are enough.

We also went to see the pulmonologist this month. He wants an overnight pulse ox study done to see if Bailey can have the oxygen off. We have not been putting it on her since her sats went back up. She only needs it when she is sick. I hate for it to be removed before we see how she will do when she has another cold. They leave me no choice though and said she can be admitted to the hospital if she has a problem.

Oh, did I mention I got a little R & R in Bolixi when I went to a Respiratory Therapy conference? My parents and Lee spent some quality time with the kids.