Monday, June 11, 2012

Visit to New Pediatrician

This is not a good start when we have been sitting in the back office now at least 40m and it is now 6 pm. Our appointment was at 4:30pm.


I was trying to post from my phone. The above post is only part of a what I wrote. Our old pediatrician has changed practices and the new practice does not accept our insurance. I am SOOOOO bummed but I had to start looking for another pediatrician. Since I don't really know anyone here with small children that are disabled and are not vaccinating their children it is hard for me to get a referral....lol.

Also, before anyone even tries to flame me about not vaccinating my children I have looked into it. They have all had some of their vaccinations. Once we moved I fell behind. Now the children are behind in vaccinations and with Joseph's health problems I have decided I was no longer going to vaccinate him until I knew better what was going on. The other two children I will vaccinate but I will not give them more than one shot at a time. The more I learned about vaccinations the more I think the schedule they advise doctors to vaccinate children is ludicrous. If you want to know why I think that please just ask I and I will send you some information.

OK, so back to finding a pediatrician. Since I did not know what else to do I decided to look on Yelp! I mean, why not? Many doctors in Las Vegas are not even listed on Yelp! I think this is a shame and I do make sure I write reviews for the specialists we see. There were a couple of pediatricians that had positive reviews so I looked them up. I picked Dr. Robertson. So I made an appointment. It was for June 11th at 4:30pm. The doctor's office is on the other side of town from me. I am NOT familiar with the area at all. With my Garmin dead I am SO LOST! LOL

Luckily, I made it there, got the children out of the car and into the wagon along with the bag of binders holding everyone's medical information. My computer and the print have not been talking to each other since we moved so I had to hand wrote out the list of doctors Joseph sees and my questions for the new doctor. I am a terror with doctors and I can't say I really apologetic over it either. My old pediatrician was GREAT! He was the coordinator of all care for Joseph. Trust me when I say that is a LOT to ask of a doctor...lol. When I had even set this appointment the receptionist asked why we were coming and I said it was to check the doctor out and to explain Joseph's complex medical history. The receptionist chuckled and I know she did not believe that Joseph's medical history takes an ENTIRE appointment just to explain everything. LOL

So I get there at 4:30pm because I had a hard time finding the place. Once I get there the office is full. The office staff was nice enough. I got the paperwork and I started to fill it all out. I get it filled in and turned back to the staff. At 5:05pm we were called into the back and put into a room. The room was cute at least, it was done in a Disney Cars motif, but I was surprised there were NO covers over the outlets. I had to tell Margaret four times not to put her fingers into the socket.

At 6:15pm the Dr. Robertson finally entered the room. I appreciated that the FIRST words out of his mouth was to apologize for the wait. That was nice. Then He looked at the list of doctors Joseph has seen since we have been in Vegas. He looked at me and asked if I saw all of them and I said yes but we do not see all of them on a regular basis. He looked at me and said, "I am SO sorry! You are VERY busy!" ROFL! NEVER had a doctor say that! Then we started talking. He asked why I was there. I told him our old pediatrician had changed practices, he knows who our old pediatrician is, and we have to find someone who takes our insurance. He looks at my list of questions and says, "I am a man, if a list is more than 2 items long I can't read it." ROFL! He asks me to tell him what is most important. I tell him I need a referral to a feeding specialist for Joseph. At 4.5 Joseph can only eat baby food, tiny star pasta, oatmeal and eggs. He drinks from a bottle and has NO idea what to do with a straw if you put it in his mouth. In the last two years his weight has not really changed even though he has grown 2 inches. He weights about 25.5 lbs. He wears a 2T shirt and a 12m to 18m pants in the waist. He is SO small!

I also told the doctor that I wanted to take Joseph to a GI doctor and I explained that we were going to see a geneticist the next day. I said we were seeing about getting Joseph a muscle biopsy to check for mitochondrial diseases. He asked why were we thinking this and I said he had some bloodwork that was off in the very long chain fatty acids. He said, "Is it a metabolic problem?" and I said I did not know. He asked for the blood work that shows the unusual numbers and I pointed to the 3" 3-ring binder. He laughed. I said I would look for the lab work and if I could find it I would have the office staff make a copy. He said there is a metabolic specialist that comes to Las Vegas once a month and he would send a referral to him for us. How awesome is that???

Overall it was a good visit through rushed. I left the office and had the kids at the car at 7:10pm. I still had to drive across town to get home. By the time I got home, fed them and got them to bed it was 9:00pm. Wow, that was a LONG afternoon!

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