Poke, Prick, Prod

Today was dedicated to running around with Evan to various doctor's offices. Unfortunately, they all involved poking and prodding so it was a rough day and Evan was less than happy by the time we were through with everything.

Evan is still wearing AFOs (short braces) on both feet and will continue to wear them for a while to make sure his bones in his feet form properly. We saw a lot of improvement physically in this area after surgery but not enough of a miracle to toss the braces yet. He does a lot of bad habit compensations and is really good at it. Half of the cute sitting styles he has are compensations for balance issues. Thank goodness he has great physical therapists! Since he is growing quickly, it was time to be fitted for new braces. This sounds simple enough, but it involves casting both feet. In previous visits this has culminated in wails that rock the building, so I wasn't looking forward to this appointment. He surprised us all with how well he handled the casting. He was visibly stressed about it but didn't even shed a tear. Whew!

That went well, but the next stop was a lab to get blood work done. We think Evan's Trileptal level may still be too high, so Dr. LaJoie wanted to get that checked as soon as possible. Evan has been to too many labs, remembers being in them and will slip into hysterics when we walk in the door, so this is a bit tricky. Our new theory is to never use the same lab twice. We're going to be driving to Maryland for blood tests soon! He really did well with the blood draw but was crying quite a bit and of course I had to hold him firmly so he didn't move him while they did it.

The final appointment was a well child visit with Evan's pediatrician. At this age well child equals immunizations and I had completely forgotten about that. Aria had her well child visit today too, but she won't need shots for a few years. This one was by far the hardest appointment of the day. I was holding Evan as he begged the nurse, through tears, not to give him shots. I looked at Aria and she was cowering from the experience of watching her brother. I asked her if she wanted to step out of the exam room which of course she did -- I wanted to too. I held Evan in a restrained position again as he sobbed and the nurse poked him as quickly as she could.

We left the office with stickers, lollipops and a toy for each of them. Dr. Hoang felt so bad for Evan that she came out and gave him a hug and a toy before we left. Not being one to shy away from a reward based system, we also had an outing that resulted in a new train for Evan and a ladybug habitat for Aria. It didn't make me feel any better though. I was definitely the bad guy today -- luckily the kids don't seem to see it that way. Not yet at least, it'll surface in therapy years from now!