Ansel got to see his new pediatrician today. Ansel weighed 25 and a half lbs and 35.5 inches. (So, another pound and another inch since January!) I did like his old doctor.. she was really nice and I loved her staff (anytime I'd call to ask something.. medicine dosage, etc... they'd ask, "Who's the patient?" and every time I'd say Ansel they always would say, "Aww.. Ansel, we love Ansel". (We'd gone there ever since he got out of the NICU) So, I do miss some aspects about his old office, but his office shut down and we had a to find a new doctor. The one thing I didn't like about the last place I went was I didn't feel like his last doctor was great with following up on things. (When we were supposed to do follow up blood tests or anything I always had to call to see if we were still supposed to do those like we'd talked about and even if she'd mention something that seemed like a concern she'd never have me bring him in for a follow up to keep an eye on things (it was just always... "see you in a year at his next appointment" type of thing.) Anyway, I feel bad that her office got shut down but hopefully the doctor change will be a good thing.
His new doctor seemed really good though. He asked me a bunch of different things (I'd made my little list of things to cover just in case so I didn't forget but didn't even need to use it because I think he pretty much covered it all in the things he asked!) We talked about the asthma thing (we'd just still been doing breathing treatments at night.. which with a home nebulizer they take about 2o minutes or so) Anyway he switched us over to an aerochamber thing (that has a little mask on it too) and you only have to have a couple of "puffs" of medicine a day (so I guess you get the inhaler medicine and attach it to this device and it's supposed to diffuse the medicine properly through a little mask.) We haven't tried it out yet, we still have to pick up the medicines for it. It's much more portable though and will be quicker to use too. His doctor added a medicine to help prevent asthma stuff too instead of just treating it.
Then, while he was talking to me he heard Ansel making this little clicking noise at the back of his throat and started asking me questions about that and asking if he had allergies (which he'd been coughing a ton the past few days again), so he prescribed some Nasonex to help with the drainage from allergy stuff. He said a lot of times kids will make that noise when their throat is getting kind of itchy from the allergies. Oh, and the part I really liked (well, not money wise but I think it's wise) is he said he wanted to see Ansel again in a month to see how the medicine changes are going and if there's anything that needs to be changed at all. (Follow-up.. and I didn't even have to ask!) So, so far I like his new doctor! The medicines are sure expensive though!! (Well, they have been for awhile though.. I wish the insurance covered a little more on them!!)
His doctor seemed pretty funny too. He came in with Ansel's 3 inch (or more) stack of paperwork and said, "Obviously there's history here! How about you give me a good summary of it to begin with!" (Seeing as how a good chunk of it was likely NICU stuff!) Ansel was pretty funny too. When he came over to listen to Ansel's heart, check his ears, nose, etc. Ansel kept saying, "No, it's not my turn, it's Mommy's turn. You can't get my arm!!" (Yeah.. he had more bloodwork done recently) Then the doctor asked to look up his nose and Ansel said, "I don't have boogers.. Mommy does.. check her nose.. it's her turn!) He doesn't like to be messed with.
Also, Ansel has an appointment with his GI doctor next week. All the bloodwork (and samples, etc. that were done a few weeks ago) went to him so he should be able to tell us more there. (We hadn't picked out a new pediatrician at that point yet.) Hopefully the blood tests are more normal this time!
I'm so terrible at updating lately! Sorry... Well, now that Cody has Tuesday's off (a lot of his dept. got cut recently :( .. and those that got to stay were cut to 32 hrs) we ended up with a nice four day weekend with memorial day... so we went camping for part of it. Ansel was so excited about it and kept talking about it for weeks (even though I don't think he really knew what camping was) and he was quite upset when we took down the tent to go home! I think he had a pretty good time!
