Isla's Dr. is a much older dude with loads and loads of experience and expertise. He is known by everyone in the local medical profession - seriously, my mole Dr. completely knew who he is - and he really respected. He teaches at a local medical school and in his own mild mannered way, he is king of pediatrics in our neck of the woods.
I was awed and attracted to all this when pedi shopping, and I also really liked our prenatal interview with him.
He visited Isla everyday in the hospital and had her in his office twice before she was a week old to make sure she was gaining weight. He paraded her around the office on her first visit, introducing her to everyone and garnering all the love, admiration and joy two parents could possibly hope for.
When I cried over something in my postpartum haze he told me it was okay and reminded me that pediatricians were 50% doctor and 50% grandparent.
He noticed Isla's bizarre neck issue and had us do little exercises with her, preventing the need for "helmet therapy."
He helped us deal with months of thrush and finally did the work my own Dr. should have done to figure out what medicine I needed.
He tolerates my paranoia about vaccines and ear infections and any other issue that is currently on the yahoo news feed.
He diagnosed Isla with GERD and worked with her until we found a medication that worked.
...and when she started having GI issues, he met with me over and over until they were resolved - diagnosis milk/soy protein allergy /intolerance.
On top of all this, Nurse Helen just happens to be the greatest nurse ever, with the exception of Nurse Grandma Suzi!
However, sometimes I feel like he doesn't (always) take me seriously. Once he talked to me (colleague to colleague) about the parents of children with ASD that will read anything on-line about ASD and beleive it. Now I'm familiar with these parents and on one hand, I couldn't agree more. On the other hand, I am the parent who spends all night reading everything that google can find on torticollis, GERD, ear infections, MSPI/A and any other concern that crosses into my over-active paranoid parent world. So while I agree, I now also feel foolish bringing up my own research to him. He has never been rude about things I bring up, but is occasionally dismissive.
His office often has a huge wait. Sometimes I wonder if he is too busy, or if he is too wrapped up in teaching, or if he is too old, or too conservative in his treatments, or too proud to make a referral, or too eight million other concerns. On top of all this, amazing nurse Helen just got switched to a different Dr. and we have a new, very nice, unfamiliar nurse - I can never remember her name.
I also get so overwhelmed by his awesome expertise and reputation (sort of my own internal appeal to authority, I know), that I never feel like I can assert myself or express myself during appointments.
Today I stressed out about communicating with him and talked to Grandma Suzi, RN for half an hour before my appointment. I also wrote down almost all my questions, took time to pull myself together and put on makeup before my appointment and did deep breathing and mental pep talking in the waiting room.
I'm not sure if it was due to all my preparations or if he was just in a more receptive mood, or if he's finally decided that Isla is not just going to "grow out of her allergies," (Hopefully she will!) but today was a wonderful appointment.
He listened to everything, came up with an action plan for figuring out the milk situation that is totally reasonable, discussed alternative sources of nutrients and gave us instructions for treating the avocado allergy. I left feeling like we were figuring everything out and not feeling like he thinks I'm a nut.
When he (or I - I'm not sure!) am in the right mood/frame of mind/etc.etc.etc., I still think he's an awesome wonderful doctor and I'm so glad he's Isla's Dr., but then I think about how stressed I get before appointments and that worries me too!
The question is... is this me or him? Is this a Dr. thing or a this Dr. thing?
I think no matter what we will switch doctors if we have two kids. The drive is too much to imagine with two kids..but that is in the undefined future - what am I going to do until that blessed day arrives.
PS - (a few days later) What is going on with Isla's allergies? Last time I posted we had just had fantastic results with the re-introduction of wheat. No reaction whatsoever. Isla's been enjoying wheat for over a month! So my plan was to do a milk trial and then post the happy results after we finished. We introduced milk and other than more burping, gas and hiccups, Isla seemed to be doing great for 4 days. I went out and bought a bunch of milk and milk products and the next day she had diarrhea which got progressively worse over the next 36 hours. I'll spare you the details, but after a trip to the doctor, we were off dairy for a week after her symptoms cleared up. Her symptoms cleared up in 1 day off milk and 8 days after our appointment we re-reintroduced milk. This time she was great for 4.5 days. The morning of the 5th day I bought a gallon jug of whole organic milk thinking we were in the clear and moments after returning from the store the GI issues were back in full force.
We met with the doctor again - a very productive appointment (see above) - and came up with this plan: hold regular milk and put Isla on Similac Sensitive, a lactose free formula with milk protein. If Isla reacts to the formula then it is a strong indication of a milk protein allergy. If she doesn't react, then it is a good indication that she is lactose intolerant. (The end result is the same - a restricted diet and special milk, but the treatment for each is different, and there is no risk of lactose intolerance turning into a serious health problem.) The reason we were doing all this is because her RAST tests did not identify an allergy and her delayed reaction is more consistent with an intolerance than an allergy (although it is consistent with a non-IgE mediated allergic reaction, but I'm not going to get into all that right now.)
We introduced the formula and she began having GI symptoms that day. (BTW, lactose free formula may ) We kept giving it to her for another 24 hours (the best part of these trials is continuing to give your child the food that is making them sick, just to make sure it is really making them sick) and she continued to have issues. Then I noticed that Similac Sensitive contains soy. Awesome. So now I don't know what she was reacting to. I stopped the formula (anyone want a barely used can of expensive formula - seriously, let me know.) We are waiting to see if we can use lactaid instead until Monday (not a big deal since she needs to be symptom free for a week before we introduce a new milk alternative.) Her symptoms stopped as soon as we stopped the formula, so that is good.
On the plus side she broke out in mild hives around her mouth immediately after eating dinner tonight. They went away quickly and the only other symptom that showed up is a stuffy nose. This is awesome because she has never had this type of reaction before. New foods tonight were Sweet Baby Rays "Gar-be-que" sauce and the white wine I used to cook the pork chops. (Although I could swear she has had both before, but I'm not sure.)
Well that is that...
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