Please be the 1/3

An Update on Leah

It's been a crazy few days with Leah. But let me back up a bit and share. I decided to call all the doctors that you guys reccommended (thanks by the way) to try to get in sooner for an appointment. I left messages explaining our situation. So 2 of the offices call me back. Dr. Allen's office offered me an appointment 2 weeks out, not bad at all. Dr. Urry's office called me back and offered me an appointment the following day. I was so excited. In my personal experience, I've never had a doctor be so accommodating. I was so thankful and anxiously awaited the next 24 hours to pass. Thanks to Deidre (who overlooked her own busy life to help me) I was able to leave Andrew and just take Leah to the appointment. With in 30 seconds Dr. Urry said I would have to go to Primary Children's and that he really couldn't help us. Dang it!! So, his office made us an appointment at PC's to hopefully expedite the process and to get in sooner. May 2nd (1 month out) was the best they came up with. I thought that was okay and it sounded sufficient. Although not as soon as I would have liked, I woSo life has become very interesting in the passed 24 hours. Let me rewind a bit. I took all the recommendations that everyone gave me for Dermatologists (thanks so much). I made appointments with Dr. Allen and Dr. Urry (Dr. Thompson is not accepting new patients). I explain Leah's situation hoping they would have mercy and get us in before 3 months haduld practice my not so great talent of patience. Through the weekend, the hemangioma seemed to grow and swell causing her nasal cavity to pinch off a bit. So I decided that I had practiced enough patience, it was time to assert myself. Monday morning came and I was on the horn by 8:30am. I left a message with the one and only Pediatric Dermatologist in all the land, letting her know how our circumstances changed and could she make an exception. I felt good about the message and quite content and hopeful that the message would be returned. When I was returning from the gym enjoying the silence, I started thinking of Jason and his job at Weber and how much he abhors returning messages. The thought came to call one more time to see if I could talk to a real live person. I called, and sure enough, I got through and was able to get a message to the Dr. So about 45 minutes later, I got a call from Dr. Vanderhooft's office, they said that they were willing to fit us in 2 hrs from the time they called. Yikes. I was completely out of two things that would keep us from that appointment. Diapers and gas. So we jammed to Costco and got what we needed and a little of what we didn't need. Off we went to PC's. The rain was falling on and off the whole way down, causing drivers to be a bit skittish and irrational. Since our insurance doesn't cover the doctors at PC's I had to call our insurance company. Talk about a confusing dialogue that nobody but insurance agents understand. I probably totally annoyed the lady by repeating everything she said to be sure I understood correctly. I got off the phone and of course nearly forgot everything she said. Stress does wonders for my already forgetful post pregnancy brain.

We got to PC's with barely enough time to nurse while trying to get registered. Of course this was the day that I forgot to bring burp cloths, so all the "stuff" that a burp cloth could help me with, my clothes and Leah's extra onsie had to compensate for. And of all the times to have a blow out, this was not it. But sure enough both her and Andrew needed to be changed and quick before there clothes were soaked. Lovely!!! So in record time we got cleaned up (more or less) and got called in to see the doctor. The resident came in first and was so kind. He explained all he knew about Hemangiomas. Most of the info was not new to me since I've obviously been preoccupied with this trying to research all I could. Dr. Vanderhooft then came in and within a minute helped me to feel at ease. She decided to take an aggressive approach and put Leah on the medication. She prescribed an additional medication to deal with the side effects of the first (nice). She explained that 1/3 of children respond very well to the medication and the Hemangioma will completely go away. So here's to hoping that little Lele will respond well and be that 1/3.

I left feeling very hopeful about the process. Generally speaking, Leah is a pretty even keeled baby. She is healthy and not too fussy. The medicine is likely to cause irritability and some reflux, which is not great, but considering the fact that normally she's an easy baby, we should be okay. I couldn't imagine if she was naturally a fussy and colicky baby in addition to the medicine, that would be really tough. Also, her immune system will be vulnerable while on the treatment, so that will mean a few more lonely months. Luckily it's summer and we'll be able to get out with out having too much contact with other kids. I'm not sure yet what that means for church, I suppose we'll just try to limit contact. Any ideas on how to explain that to people that would like to see, touch, or hold her???

So on a side note: It is possible that yesterday may have really broken me down if I didn't have my sister here with me. Jason was at a 12 hours clinical that he couldn't miss. She got here on Sunday and was really originally bummed that she couldn't meet Leah until she was 6 weeks old. But now it is so clear why her schedule wouldn't free up until now. I couldn't imagine a better person to be with me at such a stressful and worrisome time. I really love my sister and appreciate the relationship we have. We had the most difficult, stressful, and jam packed day all the while still managing to have a laugh or two just enjoying each other's company and rolling with the punches of life.
Thanks Sister!!