Houston and Texas Children's Hospital

Warning: this post probably has a lot of information that I have already written about (Ryan's health) in the past.  I, however, cannot remember what I have written as far as the details go so I am writing this so I will remember down the road.

Back at Ryan's 18 month check up, his doctor suggested that we take Ryan to see a neurologist at Texas Children's Hospital, due to the fact that he was not walking and really showing no interest in doing so. His statement was "at this point, his brain should be telling him to walk".  We considered this and decided to do it...just  to cover all of our bases.  Everyone we have talked to think his delays stem from the ear infections that he had when he was a baby.  (Don't know if I have ever explained this or not...I think that Ryan had ear infections from May until I took him to the ear doctor in November.  The reason I think this is because Ryan has a head nod for lack of a better name....he nods his head like he is saying "yes".  Not all the time...just sometimes.  I asked his old pediatrician  about this and he thought maybe it was just a habit...he liked to rock in the rocking chair so maybe he liked the way it felt to rock his head??  Not to totally knock his first pediatrician (I DON"T CARE FOR HIM!!!:) but he did not give good care to Ryan.  He never looked IN his ears...just shined his light in the general direction of his ear.  I am not exaggerating.  When I finally took him to the ear doctor, I did so because Ryan had been having the problem with gagging and throwing up his food if it wasn't totally pureed baby food.  I researched this on the internet and a few people had said that they had taken their babies to the ENT doctor for this.  When the doctor looked in his ears he said they were VERY infected and they had been for awhile.  We have asked every doctor we see about Ryan's head nod and now knowing that he had ear infections, they all seem to think that when he had fluid in his ears it was some relief to him or something.  That just breaks my heart.  Sooooo...I said all that to say that his head nod started in May so I think he had ear untreated ear infections for 6 months. :(  (p.s. Ryan was not fussy during this time or pulling at his ears so we really had no idea he had ear infections)

Ok...back to this post :)  It took us 3 months to get into the neurologist and during that time, Ryan improved greatly!  He changed from NOT wanting to walk to taking our hands to walk to now he is walking with us holding just ONE hand!!! He is doing so good!  He still tries to walk too fast and gets ahead of himself...he wants to run!  I try to get him to just stand still and get his balance but he won't be still!

Ryan's appointment with the doctor was on a Wednesday and we had a 9:00 appointment.  They called us back at 8:59 and we were done with the doctor at 9:30.  Seriously....Texas Children's has it together!  The doctor was really nice and personable with Ryan...did the Donald duck voice and everything :)  ( I had read about him before we went and he graduated from Harvard in 1986.  So judging him from that I assumed he might be stuffy.  Not even a little. Very nice!) He advised that we get a MRI, blood and urine tests.  He seemed to not be too worried about Ryan...thought it might all stem from his ears but wanted to make sure.  The blood work was NOT fun...they ALWAYS have trouble with Ryan's veins.  I am sure this is very typical.  They finally got a vein in his hand and got all the blood they needed.  Apparently, Ryan knows the color green because one of the tubes they were taking blood in had a green lid. Ryan pointed to it and said "geen".  WHO KNEW??! 

This was his sweet hand after the blood taking:

The MRI and another appointment with a reflux doctor were scheduled on a Monday so we decided to go the Houston for the weekend in our trailer.  There is a really nice campground about 10 minutes from the medical center.  They have a nice lake that you can fish in, a walking trail around the lake, a nice pool and playground. 

Apparently there are big fish in this pond but the little ones were the only ones out while we were there.  They are still fun to catch though! 

Saturday during the day we went to visit my Amy, Joe and Peter in Friendswood.  I didn't take any pictures while we were there :(

I loved this picture of Michael reading to Ryan:

Ryan's eye was still healing. We ONLY had 4 people (literally) at Texas Children's ask us what happened to his eye.  I told them he slipped on a step at the park.  Michael told me that was the oldest line in the book but it is true!  Glad they didn't report us!

I wondered when Ryan would find this fun cubby hole and enjoy playing in it :)

We ate lunch at Chuy's...yum!

And all three of us took a long nap

Then we played on the playground

We walked on the walking trail several times that evening. There were lots of REALLY nice trailers at this park.  This one in particular stuck out to me.  Is Garth Brooks in town?!

More fishing that evening

We had to be at the hospital at 7 even though his appointment wasn't until 8:30.  We had a little time to kill before we got called back.

This is a really sad picture (Ryan with his IV in) but 2 minutes later he was using his hand to play. Must not have hurt after the initial stick.

The MRI took about 1 hour and we were really glad when they called us back.  He hadn't woken up yet so we got to be there when he opened his eyes.  His first word was "ba ba".  Poor thing was so thirsty!  He really did well that morning with no food or drink but he kept reaching for my bag asking for "juice".  I was glad when I was able to give him some!

Ryan recovered quickly and they released us to go.  We had a couple hours to burn until our next appointment so we went and hung out in the cafeteria (Their cafeteria is really nice with a good view of the street and all the cars passing by. Ryan likes watching everything.)

Our appointment with the reflux doctor was interesting.  She was a little very nice to Ryan but asked me a million questions about Ryan's medical history and would say things like "slow down, slow down, you are going too fast" and " what you are saying doesn't make any sense"!  I felt like I was getting the third degree!  Our appointment with her lasted 1-1/2 hours!  She ended up being very helpful though.  She wants us to increase Ryan's dairy (up his yogurt since he is not drinking milk) and uped the dosage of his reflux medicine. She told me something that no other doctor has every told me...reflux causes ear infections.  Epiphany,  Makes perfect sense.

We have gotten results back on all the blood work, urine and MRI and everything is normal!  Thank you Jesus!  We are glad to have confirmation about what we thought.  I am now thoroughly tired of doctors and hope we don't have to see any for a long time!