Today was the first of Kennedy's medical appointments in what I am now calling her Medical Marathon Week. She had an appointment with Neurology today to get the results from her sleep study. They were worried she still had sleep apnea despite having her tonsils and adenoids removed in 2006, and the recommendation was going to be a palate expander to fix her extremely high palate which would thus fix her alleged apnea.
I was REALLY dreading this appointment. I was dreading the conversation where I would tell them that I don't WANT her to have a palate expander because it sounds like it HURTS and she's already been though enough and we're just DONE with all this medical crap thankyouverymuch. And then they would tell me that compared to what she's been through already, a palate expander would be a piece of cake! Really! And I would say, it doesn't matter. She shouldn't have to deal with this. "What she's been through already" shouldn't factor into this. And unless her apnea is so incredibly obstructive that it's going to impair her quality of life they could take their expander and... no. I wouldn't say that. I WAS ready to plead my case though. I had my argument all planned out in my head. I played it over and over as we sat in the waiting room. For an hour and a half.
They finally called us back and we walked into the room and the appointment went a little like this:
Dr: Hi there! Sorry for your wait! How is Kennedy doing?
Me: Good...
Dr: Great! Let's look at the results of her sleep study...
So she pulls out the results, goes over all the different numbers, what they all mean and basically...
She has NO sleep apnea. Zero. Zip. Nada. She's in perfect range on everything. Oh and the tech gushed over how great she was about leaving all the sensors on. So five minutes after we walked into the office, we walked out! And I didn't have to use my speech about why she doesn't need a palate expander! YAY!
Next up in Medical Marathon Week... ENT appointment on Monday... with a brand new ENT who may or may not know anything about Down syndrome and may or may not know anything about kids who have been through chemo and the hearing loss they can endure. Should be interesting... Stay tuned to this station.
Friday, July 31, 2009
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7 comments:
I'm happy that Kennedy had no sleep apnea!- My son had an expander for a year- age 12- he hated it! he also wore braces at the same time-
The expander only hurts for the first couple of days while your palate is cracking open- then you don't feel it. It really wasn't that bad- and now he has a nice wide smile with all his teeth in place- and we are $5000 poorer!!
Yeah for zip, zero sleep apnea. Its always nice to get good news with our kidos.
Yeah for Kennedy! She (and you) deserved some good news :) Hope Monday's appointment goes good too and without the hour and a half waiting room wait :)
So glad the appointment went well. Hope your Medical Marathon Week goes swimmingly! Let us know about the blood sugar...
Just in case you ever face a palate separator again, I wore one for a year or 18 months when I had braces. It was actually the least painful part of the entire brace experience. Mine was put on with my braces and while it hurt the moving teeth were worse. And I don't remember ever having pain after the original first few days. The worst thing I remember about it truly was when my palate was spread enough it fell out on one side and it was hard to get the other side off. I had much worse crap in my mouth with braces though.
I may have to borrow your term Medical Marathon Week. I have just completed a couple of those myself. Glad to hear that there was no sleep apnea..hope all the other appointments go well
Oh I'm so glad to hear that the apnea is gone. I was actually going to say don't most people have a little sleep apnea anyways? Guess it all doesn't matter though since she's free and clear. Good luck on Monday. I hope she's feeling better by then too.
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