Spokane-Bound

Sunday afternoon, the 22^nd, I had to drive up to Spokane because Caden had appointments with two specialists there: Pulmonology and Endocrinology. It's a three-hour drive and we got there in time for dinner with my family. I am blessed to have family there which makes having specialist appointments much easier to get to. I can drive up the night before and stay with my sister which is great. This time my parents also came over to have dinner with us.

Caden's first appointment was with the Pulmonologist at 8:45 am on Monday, January 23. They told me to allow three hours for the appointment because it is a new patient consultation and the doctor likes to do a thorough consultation and often does allergy testing at the visit also. I was completely blown away at the amount of time the specialist spent with us one-on-one!

He spent about an hour and a half with us in his office going over a very detailed medical history, including all Caden's congenital defects, all his surgeries/procedures, all his medications, all his developmental delays and therapies, etc. Then, he took us into an exam room where he did a thorough exam of Caden and asked a bunch more questions. After this, he did a cystic fibrosis screening on him which he says is his standard protocol with new patients. He said he didn't expect it to show anything but he was just covering his bases. It was negative which is what we expected.

Being examined by Dr. Michael McCarthy

I honestly couldn't believe how long we were at that appointment. We didn't even do any allergy testing and we were in his office until 12:45! I have to say I am very impressed with this new Pediatric Pulmonologist. He was very personable and explained some things to me which no one has taken the time to do before. I know our last Pulmonologist was extremely knowledgable but he was very difficult to ask questions because he spent so little time with us. This experience was completely different and that was very nice!

At 12:45, I had to literally run down to imaging to have a chest x-ray taken of Caden so the doctor had a baseline for him. Then I had to HURRY to get to the next appointment which was at 1:00. Thankfully the office was only 5 minutes away but I had to get Caden buckled into his car seat, drive out of the parking garage, pay at the exit, then drive to the next building, find a place to park, then find the office in the building. Needless to say I was about 10 minutes late! :(

This appointment was to meet with a Pediatric Endocrinologist in order to get Caden established with her and start the process to begin growth hormone therapy. I wasn't sure how long the process would take and was anxious to get started so Caden could have the maximum benefit possible from the medication. She said she needed more records from Caden's former pediatrician in Sacramento as well as the Endocrinologist we had seen in Sacramento before she could move forward. We liked her pretty well and we have a follow-up appointment in three months. In the meantime her office will work on getting insurance authorization to begin treatment. They will monitor his dosage and see how he responds to the therapy once it is in place.

Before we were done at this office, we had to have a bone age scan done on Caden's hand. Luckily that went really fast. But when that was done I had to fill out several medical records release forms for various doctor's offices. By the time we were finally ready to drive home it was 3:30 pm! Talk about a FULL day of appointments. Thankfully I had arranged for someone to pick Kyler up from school that day and stay with him at home until I could get back or Greg could get home from work.

I am really happy with the direction we are going with his new doctors! I just really wish they were a little closer than three hours away...