Alaina took her first of many trips to Justin’s doctors
appointments today. We hit the DS Clinic
and made our first visit to the GI doctor.
They both went very well in their own way. And Alaina did her part and quietly slept
through both appointments.
The DS Clinic was first, and I like going to this
appointment because I like showing off what Justin has learned. He did great!
He drew circles and identified pictures and stacked blocks just like a
champ. And it has been a long time since
Randy has been to an appointment so it was good for him to see what goes on and
what Justin does. He got an OT and
speech evaluation and both set his developmental age right under three years,
with a smattering of skills above three.
They both were very encouraged with his rate of progress. He is still making large gains, with no signs
of plateauing. And the doctor was
encouraging for the first time with some of Justin’s medical struggles. She agrees with our decisions about his sleep
problems and was just as frustrated as we are with searching for answers. And she told us that the protocol for DS has
added a sleep study at age four for all kids with DS. It seems that it is more prevalent than once
thought, close to 50-75%. And it only
increases with age. I had felt that she
dismissed our concerns before, but now with more studies and a change in
protocol, we’re not as hyper-sensitive as she once thought. It was a good appointment and we are now good
for another year!
The afternoon brought us to the GI doctor. We went to one of the satellite clinics on our
side of town, the place that is the parking nightmare. Randy had never been there (it’s difficult
for me to remember where he hasn’t been since we see so many doctors at this
clinic) it figures we would find a place to park right away. The first thing the doctor wanted to do was
take an x-ray since she had looked at his chart and saw the horrible x-ray from
September (which was the worst she said she had ever seen and that was after 6
diapers.) She couldn’t see the x-ray
from the ER so she wanted another baseline.
It wasn’t so bad, but Justin still was pretty full. So after much discussion and debate, she
decided the best course of action was a colon cleanse and then start over with
a maintenance medicine to keep him going.
She consulted with a doctor at the Motility Clinic, a sub-specialty
within GI. Does it seem crazy that there
are doctors who just study the motility of food and waste through the colon and
intestines? It doesn’t seem like that
would be a very popular specialty! We
will probably visit them sometime so I will get to see what that’s all about. We get to do all this with Justin and go back
in four weeks to report our progress.
So this weekend we will be staying at home, encouraging Justin
to drink salt water and changing his diaper.
And probably giving him baths and doing some laundry. We hope.
It always takes Justin longer to get his system moving so we’ll see how
this works. Everything is based in adult
dosages so we have to be careful not to overdo it, but still give him enough to
make it work. We don’t want to have to
do this again! Justin has suffered so
much, and I just want him to feel better.
This week was also VBS at one of our neighborhood
churches. The boys went last year and
had lots of fun so I was glad they could go this year again. Randy and I were able to spend some time
together with Alaina which was a treat.
Next week is Sports Camp at our church and Travis is SO excited. He has been anxiously waiting since last
year. He even learned his memory verse
already so he could get a pin like last year.
He wants a wrist band to go with his from last year too. It should be lots of fun!
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