Friday, August 07, 2009

Unrevealing (and a lot of venting)

Due to the pediatrician's urgings, I took Sophie to a pediatric endocrinologist a few weeks back to find out if her low weight gain was due to hormones, chromosomes, or what not. I had a horrible experience because not only did I feel that Dr. Nunez did not know what she was talking about, but I had to spend an additional hour in the waiting room with a tired toddler while the assistant tried to get a hold of the pediatrician's office to find out what additional blood work they needed. Normally this would have been a routine thing, but what really bothered (more like perturbed) me was that Dr. Nunez said that I had to contact the pediatrician's office myself and get the test names to tell the assistant. So, I did just that, but then I find out that the assistant ended up calling them herself and had to wait 30 minutes for the pediatrican's office to call her back, when I had just gotten off the phone with them! Basically, lots of time wasted.

Two weeks passed and I hadn't gotten heard back from Dr. Nunez's office, so I called and left a message with the nurses. Two days later, a nurse calls to say that the blood test results were back and the doctor had looked at them, but didn't tell her what they said. Sheesh... Finally, three weeks after the visit, another nurse calls me back to tell me that Dr. Nunez said that the results were "unrevealing" and that I needed to go to a GI specialist and immunologist. Okay, it was tough enough to bring myself to take Sophie to the endocrinologist in the first place, and now two more specialists? I KNOW that Sophie is fine, but what if she's not, so I have to take her, right? So, I called the pediatrician to kind of complain and not only did she agree with Dr. Nunez, but she wanted me to add a hemotologist to address Sophie's anemia. WHAT?!?!?!

Okay, so I make all the appointments and am finally okay with everything. The pediatrician than personally calls me back today and tells me that after our conversation, she looked at the test results again and didn't see any reason for the immunologist. So, she called Dr. Nunez who agreed that everything was normal and who sounded a bit confused. The pediatrician doesn't even think Dr. Nunez looked at the test results! So, I guess, in a way, it was a good thing I got all disturbed because it made the pediatrician take another look and saved us a trip to an unnecessary specialist; the one time my hot-headness came in handy!

So, Sophie's got her hemotologist appointment in a couple weeks and the GI specialist apointment in October. The hemotologist appointment is mainly for her future, to understand where her anemia is coming from though treatment is not needed. The GI specialist is essentially our second opinion to see if Sophie has any absorption problems because of her low weight gain. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for letting me vent.

1 comment:

  1. whoa! sounds so complicated. hoping and praying everything works out for you guys

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