A Day of Appointments

Yesterday, Rachel and I spent some quality time together going from appointment to appointment. Thankfully, she was in a pretty good mood and didn't put up too much of a fuss.

On our way!

First up was a blood draw. We need to get her thyroid checked (it's a yearly thing) and some other blood count stuff to check on her overall health for her pediatrician and to see how her kidneys are doing. She has her routine 6 month check up with her kidney doc January 3rd so we had to get that blood work to him before hand. Nothing like knocking out two birds with one stone. She hated being held down for the blood draw but at soon as it was over she was ok and running towards the door. (As I was typing this the pediatricians office called and said the blood work looked great. Yay! Now we just need to get the OK from the kidney doc.)

After that we went into the new Madison Hospital for an x-ray of her neck. Kids with Down syndrome have a higher chance of issues with their neck development. If it doesn't develop properly, just a somersault can lead to paralysis so that is something we need cleared before Rachel can get into those type of activities. (Fun right?) This hospital only has the ER and imaging department open right now. While we were in the waiting room there was a young girl next to us who was set to get an MRI. She had two large bottles of barium "smoothie" to drink. GAG. I cannot even imagine having to do that. Blech. Anyway, the x-rays went fine for Rachel. The tech held her on her lab so the machine could get a profile shot. I had to stand in front of Rachel to make her look straight ahead, up and down. I'm guessing we'll hear something about that either tomorrow or next week.

The last stop on our list was a follow-up with her ENT. We barely got there on time but for once we were seen within 20 minutes and out the door. The Doctor had his scrubs on so I'm guessing he was in a rush to get back to the hospital. The Doctor said everything looked great and we had no need to go back to him unless something funky came up. That is what I like to hear. While it seems like we are constantly at doctors appointments for her, we really aren't. Most of these appointments are yearly or every 6 months. Time just flies by so quickly it's like we were just there.

Rachel at the ENT 5/18/2010

Rachel at the ENT 12/14/2011

These pictures are an example of that. I can't believe she was ever that little. Our little Rachel girl.