I took Elijah to see our wonderful and beloved Dr. Judy today for his 5-year well visit. I know I have mentioned this about a thousand times before, but we have been so incredibly blessed with the best doctors. We love Dr. Judy!
Elijah's height was exactly equal to his weight! 40 inches tall (3rd percentile) and 40 pounds (44th percentile). At his last visit he wasn't on the chart for height, so I was happy to see that he was on it this time.
We talked at length about his potty training issues, and Dr. J assured me that we are doing everything we can possibly do. She gave me a few suggestions, so we will try those and see what happens! It was nice to hear from her that considering his history (strong will + medical) that this isn't totally unusual.
She also suggested that Elijah start occupational therapy, in addition to his weekly physical therapy. He could use some help with self-care tasks and potty-related tasks, as well. I talked to his PT tonight and she 100% agreed! In fact, she said that she had secretly put him on the OT waiting list about a month ago. So we are going to try to get him on the schedule to receive weekly OT and PT.
There is a little mole on E's back that I have been keeping an eye on. It has started growing, and the center has started to darken. Dr. J thought that we should take care of it immediately. Her thought was that we could piggy-back on his upcoming heart cath and have a general surgeon come in and snip it off quick while he is sedated. Oh, have I mentioned the upcoming heart cath? April 18th is the day. We had to move the date up a bit due to insurance concerns. Hopefully we can get the mole taken care of at that time. I will call Dr. G this week to get his thoughts.
Elijah had to get three vaccinations today, and he was a brave boy. He got three prizes, so that seemed to ease any pain that was caused.
Dr. J was in disbelief about his poor eyesight and recent need for glasses. She showed me the results of his eye exam from one year ago. He had 20/32 vision in both eyes! A month ago, the vision in his left eye was 20/400!
Remember Elijah's fall off of a chair and onto the tile floor about 6 weeks ago? The bump on his head is still there, and still rather large. Dr. J said that was normal for such a trauma. Elijah still complains about pain from that area on occasion, but she said that was normal, as well. Good to know!
Overall it was a great visit, as usual. Our monkey is doing great and we are so very proud of him.
I tried my best to talk Dr. J into skydiving with Dan this summer! She said she would consider it. :)
2 comments:
Well done, Elijah!
An acuity of 20/400 indicates amblyopia. Keep close tabs on that eye because it is likely to not be corrected completely with glasses. Amblyopia is actually an issue in the brain where it decides to ignore the signal form one eye because it does not match the signal from the other eye. The glasses correct the image the eye delivers but it does not make the brain turn back on normally. If you want, I can send you some information and some simple exercises that can help. Also, while he is patched, make sure he does interactive things like play video games. He sees the image, processes it, follows up with a physical reaction which in turn changes the image he sees. That creates a feedback loop that reinforces the brain processing the image from the weak eye. You can reach me at waitingforahren@yahoo.com
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