Medical Drama

No, it's not yet another tv show about doctors - it's life at the Gardipee Hale! Last week was great fun, with some sort of medical appointment every day. One was to Children's Hospital to get Kealan's 4th dose of Botox for her leg. It was a new doctor, and they administered it in a different way. One of the injections went in the front of her leg, which normally would have been fine. Instead of laying her down on the table, I held her in my lap. Midway through the injection I realized that this wasn't the best idea, as she could see the needle going in. Let me preface the following with this: my daughter is a fighter. And when she is fighting for real she is crazy-strong. I remember when she was 3 1/2 and had that horrible flu and required IV rehydration at the pediatrician's office. Mind you, she hadn't eaten in days and couldn't even keep water down, yet somehow she managed to fight 5 nurses, me and a doctor off. It took all of us 1 1/2 hours to get an IV in. As I stated then, I was actually proud of her! Well, she demonstrated that force again when she decided she didn't want that needle in her leg. She fought against me, the doctor and the nurse for just a second before the injection was over, but the damage was done. Not to her, but to the needle! The doctor ws simply speechless, holding up the needle so we could look at it. "I've never seen this. In 20 years I've never seen this or even heard of this!" she said, staring in awe at a bent needle. That's right - bent - about 45 degrees! Note to self - next time she won't be able to see the injection.

The other appointment that didn't exactly go as planned was her check up with her Opthamologist. Not only did we find out that past 3 1/2 years of patching didn't work, but that she needs surgery on her left eye. Now, I always tell myself and am very aware that the medical issues with my children can be so much worse. But just once I would like some sort of payoff. We are constantly piling on more interventions and therapies, and (aside from T's helmet kind-of working) nothing has worked to the point of discontinuing it! We've had Physical Therapy (for both), helmet therapy (T), 3 braces (K), botox (K), countless eye excercises (K), patching (K), glasses (K), leg exercises (K), electro-stimulator (K), oxygen (T), surgery (T), regular blood draws (T), isolation (T), and too many specialists to count. I WANT SOMETHING TO WORK! There, now that that's out of my system, I'm off to put the patch on my daughter's eye.