Doing the Doctor Dance

I wrote to a mom who has a child with a seizure disorder, and asked her what she thought of the video of Nolan's staring episodes. She agreed we should get him in to see a neurologist, and sooner rather than later. She explained that the first visit is just a consult, then they have to set you up for the EEG, then you have to wait for the follow-up appointment. We should really get in to see one of our other doctors to get a referral as soon as possible.

We see our GI doctor on the 8th (which, coincidentally, is also the date of Matthew's four-year-old well child visit to the pediatrician). She, however, won't have the data from the sleep study. I decided to give the ENT a try.

Our original appointment was for March 1, but I called and rescheduled. The first available appointment was February 8th, which won't work for the obvious reasons. I really need to start working on that ability to be in two places at once, but until I can do that or teleport, the 8th is out. The next available appointment is February 15th. I took it, but wasn't happy with waiting another 2 weeks to get a referral to a neurologist. I also wasn't very happy that the sleep study results still aren't in, but it has been only 10 days. The write-up takes between 10-14 days, so I suppose we can wait until the 15th to find out the results from that test.

So I took a deep breath, and called the pediatrician's office. I tend to shy away from them. They have had a general trend in being wrong about Nolan's various medical needs. As evidence:

• His hearing loss was just "fluid in the ears." Wrong.
• We were just "gilding the lily" with his "possible" urology problems. Wrong.
• He would grow out of his failure to thrive status by the age of 5. Wrong.

I called the pediatric office and made an appointment with the nurse practitioner, since getting in to see the actual pediatrician is almost impossible. I asked the office personnel if their office had access to the internet, because I had managed to get one of Nolan's staring events on video. The office lady said (and I quote), "Well, I don't know about that. I don't think we have the internet here."

We are able to get in this afternoon, so we should have the ball rolling with the referral very shortly. Even if they have to chisel that referral on a stone tablet and send it by chariot, it should be written by this afternoon.