Doctor's Appointments abound

The first week of December all four kids had appointments. Ethan his five year appointment, the twins their 27 month appointment and Lauren normal appt with with the Rheumatologist. Then last Friday Collin had an appt at the Apraxia Clinic with the developmental pediatric doctor at Children's specializing in speech disorders.

So, here's the run down:

Ethan five year appointment: he is now 42 lbs (50 percentile) and 44 inches (75 percentile). His blood pressure and eyes checked out. His right ear didn't do so well in the hearing test but it was low tones so the doctor isn't worried about it (this is the ear he always had ear infections in even well after tubes). Otherwise, he checked out fine and put on quite a performance for the doctor.

Twins 27 month appointment:
Collin was 31 lbs (65%) and 37 inches (90%).

Oliver was 26.5 lbs (30% - he had been sick and not eating so I think he is a little bigger really) and 35.25 inches (50%)

This appointment was scheduled due to their hearing test in August and the delays we saw at their two year appt. The doctor just wanted to check up on them. All things are as they were, waiting on developmental peds.

Lauren's JRA appointment:
Everything went well with Lauren. She had a couple small flares which Steve treated with Embrel and it worked like a charm. The doctor's were really pleased and she is to continue as needed. Otherwise, all the labs checked out fine.

Collin's Apraxia Clinic Appointment:
We finally got an appt for Collin last Friday, which was a cancellation that they let me know about late Wednesday. I grabbed it! As you might recall, we were meeting with a doctor that the Apraxia Support Group moms recommended we see. As with most specialists, she was a little dry and hard to read. She asked me a billion questions and referred to the HUGE questionnaire that I had filled out prior. She also checked Collin over and spoke to him some. He was his ornery self getting into everything... including opening the door of the exam room and darting out. As she and I chased after him, she kept saying how quick he was... while we were panting. He actually made it very far... for a big little guy he sure is quick. This prompted her to sit in directly front of the door for the rest of our hour and a half appointment. In the end, she said that he has all the signs of Apraxia and she feels he is indeed Apraxic (which we really knew already). She said she has two sets of Apraxia patients, one that Apraxia is their primary problem and others where it is one of many issues. She said the ones with Apraxia as the primary issue tend to progress much faster (obviously) and that Collin appears to fall in this category. She did say however, that three is when they do further testing. Sometimes they find that by three they are not progressing as much as they think they should, so at that point they do a more thorough evaluation and include MRI and CAT scans and the works, if needed. I guess they have found children that have had mini stokes that are undetected until these tests but obviously the reason for the Apraxia. Strokes?! Yes, I had one right there. She said that wasn't very common but it has happened. There are many other underlying issues that could present during these tests as well, but none of which she would share and at this point I was cool with that (didn't want anything worse or equal to mini stokes floating through my head every time Collin back slides on talking). She put him at about a 16-18 month age level with the speech he has now. He's 28 months old. That's a little hard to take, but like Steve said, it could have been way worse and he could not be talking at all right now.

All in all, Collin is getting much better. He is now repeating words. Not all words, but some and easy ones mostly. However a few months ago, heck even a month ago, he was not doing this. His spontaneous words are very, very few and these are, of course, the most important ones. And though we know he is saying some, we just don't understand much of it. But, he is improving and that's what matters. Lastly, the doctor did say that our therapies currently are all good and that we are doing what we need to do at this point. We will re-evaluate this in six months when she sees him again.

And that's that on the doctor end of it... for the kids at least!