Medical Update

Our little Dougie has been having a small medical problem lately. It started innocently enough. In fact, we hardly even noticed it at first. When he would nurse before bed, once in a while, he'd tense up. I thought he was stretching. This went on for a few weeks but I never gave it any thought. Then, last week, he did it while he was eating in his high chair. It caught my attention but I figured it was a one time thing. The next day at the park, he was eating an animal cracker and it happened again. On Friday, I decided it was time to talk to the doctor.

Initially, we sent an e-mail into the doctor's office but as I researched some of the causes of these spasms, we decided to call instead. The nurse made us an appointment for Monday morning but said that if the frequency increased, we should bring Dougie into the hospital. As the evening progressed, the frequency did increase. So, right before Dougie's bedtime, we packed him up and brought him to what we thought the hospital was. Turns out, it was actually an urgent care center. They were very nice there but they couldn't do any of the tests that were necessary to determine what was going on. So, we went back home with no answers.

By Saturday morning, we had decided we were going to bring Dougie to the hospital. He had had several spasm episodes Friday night and there was a dramatic up-shift. The nurses there were nice... the doctor, not so much. He did tells us that it wasn't seizures because Dougie wasn't falling asleep afterward. I happened to know that falling asleep wasn't a requirement for seizures but who was I to argue with him. He had the nerve to ask what else was wrong, like the convulsions our son was having wasn't reason enough to be there. He set us up with a referral for a neurologist and sent us on our way.

We made it through the rest of the weekend and Dougie didn't get any worse, which was good to see. Monday, we went to see the pediatrician. We had a little video of Dougie having some of his episodes so we could just show him instead of trying to explain it. The doctor wanted to do some blood work. There are a variety of things that could cause convulsions that are detectable in a blood test. He had no other ideas as to what could be going on though he did say he didn't think it was seizures. For the record, he also said sleeping wasn't a requirement for seizures but Dougie was too alert for it to be a seizure. By Monday afternoon, we had an appointment schedule with the neurologist for Wednesday morning.

Today, we got the results of the blood work. Everything came back normal. I'm not sure how to take the news. I guess it's good that there aren't any issues with any of Dougie's organs and that his blood is all fine, but it sounded like our best outcomes would have been found in blood work so I was hoping they would fine something. So, now we wait until tomorrow.

The good news in all this is that Dougie feels fine. He has a spasm and then continues with what he was previously doing. He's only gotten upset a few times and those tend to be when he has a lot in a row or the spasm is a bit stronger. We're keeping calm and not Googling anything more.

I'll definitely provide an update after we see the neurologist tomorrow. I don't expect a lot from the appointment other than getting schedule for some tests but I'll update regardless. If you could spare a few positive thoughts for our little guy, we'd all appreciate it.