More Doctors...

Today Juliana had her first of three doctors' visits for the month of October. Ryan worked from home so that he could drive with us to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, which is on the campus of Northwestern University. We dropped Noah off at Theresa's house, because we never know how long the visit is going to take and it's hard enough to entertain one child at the doctor's office, let alone two. I did promise him a special "momma-Noah" date when we picked him up, and that seemed to put him in better spirits when we left.

The drive to Chicago was not a bad one- you never know how 55 is going to be, and traffic was actually moving. The last time I drove there, I discovered that for only a dollar more, I could valet park, which makes it a lot easier when you have a baby/toddler, and Ryan agreed, so we valet parked the car and got our visitor badges and checked it. We were taken back to a room right away, and asked a few questions by Dr. Gaebler's nurse. After she left in came two residents, who proceeded to ask us a bunch of odd questions- the weirdest being, is she in school- ummm, you just triple checked with us that she was 17 months old, yeah, she's in third grade. Are you kidding me? Then they gave her a generic physical where they checked her reflexes and listened to her heart.

After they left, Juliana started to get squirrely. There was a walker in the room, so we spent the remainder of our waiting time pushing it around the room with her- she was walking while pushing it, she just needed help guiding it. Finally, Dr. Gaebler came into the room... with the 2 residents, and this time with a neurologist as well. It was one big happy family. She asked us to get Juliana down to her diaper so she could see her musculature, and once we did that, Juliana was happy as a clam (I think she would be naked all the time if she had her wish). Both Dr. Gaebler and her neurologist agreed that Juliana has low muscle tone and she wants us to get Juliana some supports for her shoes (which we don't have because Juliana isn't fully walking yet anyways) to help support her ankles as she's walking.

Then, Dr. Gaebler asked us how "doctored-out" we were. I just laughed, because really, what's another doctor at this point? She is referring us to two more doctors- a developmental pediatrician and a geneticist. I don't know if she expected us to fight her on this or if she expected us to be surprised by it, but neither Ryan or I raised an eyebrow. Maybe at this point we are just numb to not getting answers or being told that we need to see another doctor, I don't really know. Either way, I do know that tomorrow I will be spending my plan period on the phone arranging doctor appointments, because I will do whatever I have to do for my daughter. Whatever it takes.

After that, we got to leave. I picked up Noah from Theresa's house, and took him to lunch at Choo Choo Johnny's. He loved it- LOVED IT! If you don't know Noah, he loves trains, and at Choo Choo Johnny's your lunch is delivered to you by a train. We had never been there before, and I didn't know what to expect, but I had seen an ad about it in the paper, and thought it would be a nice place to take Noah for a date. We had a great time, and I know that Noah did too. He even said, "maybe next time, Daddy and sister can come on the Momma-Noah date, too".