First Check Up

Well our first check up was a success. It was interesting to go to this appointment because they let you see everyone in one sitting. So you sit in a room for 3 and a half hours and the doctors and nurses just rotate through. The doctors and specialists we saw were neurology, neuro surgery, occupational therapist, physical therapist, urology, dietician, spina bifida nurse, pediatrician, and a social worker to help with financial questions.

The occupational therapist came in first and gave us some new stretches for when he is in his casts to help move his upper body. After that Neurology came in and talked about his headsize. He has gone from 4% to 36% as far as his head size. He has jumped some lines on his percentage so it is growing a little quickly but that is normal for a spina bifida child. But we have to keep watching his size because of the hydrocephalus. Then the orthopedic surgeon came in. He talked about Carters club feet. His feet are mid range when it comes to club feet. He also has some hip issues because of how he was scrunched up on the inside. So his hips are tight and so his feet come up to his chest. With stretches we are hoping that gets fixed. With his feet we are having some issues with what to do.

We have to do casting and with that we have to replace the casts every week. This becomes difficult having to drive up there every week especially in the snow which will be coming soon. Also they only do the casting up there on Thursdays. That doesn't work with my schooling. Most of my classes are on Tuesday and Thursday so this causes a little bit of a problem. There is a doctor in St. George that has done some but we do not know how experienced he is. So we are going to try him for a couple casts and see if he is able to do it. If the casts do not work we will eventually have to do surgery. We are hoping and praying that the doctor can do the casts and they work. 45 mins to St. George is much better then all the way up to Salt Lake.

Urology came in and talked about the problems that he could face. They are doing a procedure next month to test whether he is having reflex in his bladder. This means that the urine is pushed up from his bladder to his kidney and can cause infection. They will put dye in his bladder so they can see where the liquid goes and check that with an x-ray.

Overall so far so good though with this check up. We knew that this would be a process. There will probably always be something going on for the first couple years because of the challenges he faces. Thats OK. We will keep pushing through.

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