Just One of Them Days

Susanne had to get Paxton up and out of the house before 7:30am. This was rough for both of them. Paxton had a speech therapy appointment this morning with a new person at a different hospital. Susanne was having to try to piecemeal his therapy scheudule together since she couldn't find one facility that was willing to see him more than once a week.

Susanne arrived with ten minutes to spare. After unloading Paxton, securing him in his stroller, and gathering all of their multiple bags, she realized she had parked in a reserved parking space that required a parking pass. She had to reload everything and try again. She found another parking space within minutes. She repeated the above process. After getting inside the building, she was confused. She needed to get to the fifth floor, but this building only had two levels. She called the number to the clinic to figure out what was the problem. She was informed that she was in the wrong place. She had gone to the Physician's Offices I, but she needed to be in Physician's Offices II. Of course, this building was on the opposite side of the hospital. Back to the car she went to start over. It didn't help matters that it was raining. By the time she got to the correct location, she was now ten minutes late.

The speech therapist came right out to get them. She read over his order for services that was from Paxton's pediatrician. She quickly informed Susanne that the order was missing something. Instead of saying Paxton needed an evaluation and treatment for speech and feeding therapy, it just said speech therapy. She told Susanne that she would not be able to work on feeding with Paxton today because of the incorrect information. This put Susanne over the edge. She couldn't fight back a tear that was insistent on coming out. The therapist finally agreed to continue the assessment.

She spent the first thirty minutes getting a history from Susanne. This sometimes frustrated her especially when she would spend the entire night before the appointment filling out the fifteen page history form with all of the SAME information on it. Needless to say, there was a lot of talking, but not a lot of therapy. Better luck next time.

Susanne got home just in time to put Paxton down for a quick nap before his pediatrician's appointment at noon. He was going in for his 18 month check-up appointment. Where did the time go?

Paxton was looking good. He was still right at 25 lbs. This placed him in the 35th percentile for his weight. He measured at 32" long which put him in the 45th percentile for his height. This was a MAJOR improvement from not too long ago when he was in the <5th percentile for both. Dr. Lynn checked his iron level which came back normal. She agreed with the gastroenterologist that it was a good time to discontinue the vitamin supplement with iron. This was music to Susanne's ears. It felt nice for once to be able to subtract something from Paxton's regimen instead of adding something. The pediatrician also approved the proposed changes for Paxton's feeding schedule. This was going to be a slow process to increase the amount fed while decreasing the rate it was given. His fontanelle had almost completely closed so Susanne would have to figure out another way to observe him for fluid overload. He didn't end up receiving any vaccinations, but he would have to come back within the next three months to update his immunizations.

By the time they got home, Paxton was exhausted. He went right down for a nap and tried to recover from the chaotic day.