Toying With My Emotions

*Disclaimer-This post is probably fairly boring and confusing.  But I need to get it off my chest, and lucky me, I think that's kind of the point of having a blog.  However, if you do decide to read it, you'll definitely get a good glimpse into why I haven't had the energy to post in awhile.  

Before I start this story, let me first give you a list of important players.  That makes my life a lot easier, which is what's really important here.

Dr. A - PCP
Dr. R - Geneticist
Dr. B - Cardiologist
Dr. E - Gastrointerologist

Mostly giving you this guide means I only have to type 3 letters instead of up to 18.  See?  Making my life easier.

About a month ago, The Smoodge's PCP (primary care physician for those of you who think I would allow my daughter to have her own stash of drugs) scheduled her to go see a cardiologist for the heart murmur that her geneticist diagnosed.  Dr. R said it could be detected both above and below her heart, and since heart problems are common in Chromosome 10 deletions, it warranted an appointment with Dr. B.  Dr. A is who scheduled it because he's kind of the hub of the wheel, if you will.  Anyway, Dr. A had his nurse schedule the appointment, and she called me to let me know when it was.  And the date she told me was September 24, 2008 at 9:30am.  So today rolls around, and The Smoodge and I head out for the appointment.  I ended up missing my exit, and, thanks to all the WELL THOUGHT OUT construction going on in San Antonio, called Dr. B to let him/her (I don't know yet, we haven't met) that we were going to be late.  Long story short, her appointment wasn't scheduled for September 24th, it was scheduled for October 24th.  By the time we had gotten that figured out, not only had the MENSA candidate posing as a receptionist and I bonded, but I was sitting in the parking lot of the medical center.  I nicely (no really!  I know how I can be, but this time, I was so freaking patient, I was channeling Gandhi)  asked if we could be seen anyway, and was shut down.  Ugh.  However, that lovely receptionist was able to slap a couple of brain cells together and ask if I wanted to add The Smoodge to the cancellation list to possibly get her into see Dr. B earlier than the end of October.  So I signed up for that plan, and off to the rest of the day we went.  The Smoodge to her school, and me to my place of bidness (that's slang for business).

Blah blah blah, day goes by, blah blah blah.  The Smoodge and I get home, and a strange number calls my phone.  It's Dr. B's office, and they have had a cancellation for tomorrow at 2:30pm, and would we like it?  Um, yeah...that's gonna be a positive.

So now I get to go through all of the worrying and sleeplessness (that's kind of a stupid word...too many 'ess's...or is it es-i?...whatever) tonight.  The Smoodge has a whole slew of doctors and appointments and issues and things that have to be watched and all kinds of stuff.  And I'd like to think that even though my daughter's body has kind of turned out to be a lemon, we've weathered a lot of this fairly well and are making lemonade.  And by we, obviously I mean me and The Smoodge.  But that's a rant for a different date.  Anyway, weathering things well, and doing what needs to be done.  When she wouldn't stop vomiting long after the spitting up phase of her life should have been over, Dr. A sent us to Dr. E to have it checked out, who did an endoscopy/flex sigmoid and determined it was esophagitis caused by acid reflux.  And now she takes meds twice a day to combat the acid reflux.  So then we went to Dr. R on Dr. A's recommendation because he wanted to see if all her other little issues were tied together through some kind of syndrome, and Dr. R discovered the Chromosome 10 deletion, which, by the way, really not a lot of information on, it's just kind of check any bodily system that displays any signs of anything out of the norm, the heart murmur, and the elevated liver levels, we went back to Dr. A to get a sonogram of her liver to see what was wrong, and they discovered her gall stones.  Gall stones, in case you aren't aware, are fairly unheard of in an 18 month old without mitigating circumstances, such as premature birth (she wasn't), feeding tube (she doesn't have one), or very heavy antibiotics (nope, not this one either).  So then we had to go to a surgeon, and he and Dr. E agreed that the gall bladder needed to be removed, so we did that.  My 23 month old daughter no longer has a gall bladder.  Anyway, now that we have that dealt with the gall bladder issue, which we thought would take care of the liver issue, Dr. A decided to move on to the heart murmur issue.  Which leads us to Dr. B.  And we're still dealing with the liver issue, but at this point it's just waiting for blood results from Dr. E, but that is ALSO another rant.  Current issue at hand, cardiologist.  

Throughout ALL of that, and believe me, that's the abbreviated version, the only time I really start to panic or freak out or drink excessively (kidding...sort of...mostly...) is when I don't know something.  And the culmination of that not knowing just comes to a head the night before the appointment.  All the other doctor's appointments I don't so much freak out about anymore, simply because I mostly know what's going on.  Currently with the heart thing, I don't, and so last night I was panicky, and then when the appointment didn't happen, I calmed down, and now I'm all nervous again, because it's back on.  It's definitely better to do this tomorrow instead of a month from now, but man, I gotta get some sleep at some point.  I guess that's just the price I pay for being proactive instead of reactive.  While a heart murmur isn't generally a big deal, and tons of people have them, and especially in a less than two year old whose pipes haven't gotten themselves all figured out yet, what elevates this is her chromosome issue.  And I realize it's a slight murmur, but then I think about how I was told not to worry about her vomiting until they discovered it was a good thing I worried.  And I was told not to worry about her gall stones, until they removed her gall bladder and discovered she had been passing gall stones for probably her whole life.  So yeah.  Elevated liver levels?  Heart murmur?  What's to worry about there?

And to keep from going completely bat shit, I'm going to be going through the 1039 emails that have been piling up in my inbox this evening and organizing my day for work tomorrow to help time go by faster.  So stop by, say hello.  I'll probably be on facebook, and meebo, and whatever else.  I'll take any distractions.     

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