6 Month Opthalmology

Kaiden has his next 6 month ophthalmology follow up appointment today with Dr. Edward O'Malley.  I just LOVE that man!  He is so easy to talk to and down to earth.  It doesn't hurt that he flattered me about my firm handshake either.  He reminds us of Steve Martin.  He truly DOES look like him!  Don't you think so too?  And he's funny as well.

 

Dr. O'Malley still does not recommend glasses.  He thinks Kaiden will just use them as a toy.  He says that he is using both eyes, his right to see close up and his left to see distances.  His nystagmus is lessened.  He is using head positioning to compensate for poor eyesight.  Surgery could be done at this age to improve that but since it doesn't seem to be a big issue, we will hold off on considering that. O'Malley continues to see improvements.  We will follow-up again in 6 months.

International Adoption Specialist

Two and one half years after bringing Kaiden home, we finally saw an International Adoption Specialist pediatrician, Dr. Oettgen.  If she wasn't all the way downtown at Children's Hospital,  would switch to her as his regular pediatrician.  She was wonderful!  Very knowledgeable and the best bedside manner that I've experienced.  Not that I don't love most of Kaiden's specialist, she was just different.  She seemed to have a true understanding of all the unknowns that we have with him.  After one and half hours of talking with her about which specialists we have seen and which tests we have had run on him, we left with no more answers than we had going into the appointment.  I am fine with that though because she reassured me that we've done mostly what she would have recommended anyways.  She did order a few more blood tests but didn't think that in the end we would know more about his condition than we do now. 

Of course with it being Fall, and especially with his neurological condition, we couldn't leave without a flu shot.  I was very proud of myself not only getting him the flu shot but also getting the blood drawn while we were already at the hospital.  Normally I would have left and had Pete take him back for those two things.  It's a good thing that his is unaware of my squeamishness.