August 13 - Pulmonologist

Wednesday we took Max to the Pulmonologist. His office is in the same complex of hospital buildings as the NICU. It was an unsettling déjà vu to get of at that exit and turn into that parking lot. As with most of the specialists we've been seeing, since this was the first visit to his regular office, we had to fill out yet another stack of paper work. :-P

The Pulmonologist, Dr. C is very nice. We're lucky for Max to have so many physicians with good bedside manners. Because Max' case is so unique, he brought a med student with him to observe. Although he was quiet and Dr. C didn't really acknowledge him being there after the initial introductions.

The good news is that his lungs are currently presenting to be "100% normal". This status is closely dependent upon Max' heart condition, the lungs themselves no longer seem to be the root cause of any condition. We asked about continuing to bring the emergency oxygen bottle with us everywhere we took Max. Dr. C told us that he didn't feel it was necessary. However, he recommended that we take the Pulsox (Pulse and Oxygen saturation monitor) instead. Great. That's even more of a hassle. Multiple parts. Wires. Tethered to Max. That rates another ":-P".

Dr. C declined to do chest x-ray today, but ordered one immediately prior to our next visit with him in four weeks. Fortunately, he also forewent any blood work. The visit was very long, and we were eating into Max' lunch time, so he was beginning to get crabby. We didn't bring his feed pump, because we didn't anticipate the visit taking so long. That will teach us to just bring his entire technology arsenal with us from now on. So back home...

In the afternoon, we had the intake interview from ECI. This is a non-profit organization that is subsidized by Federal and State funds. These people will help to coordinate speech and language therapy, cognitive development therapy, physical therapy, and other miscellaneous educational resources. Through them, we just discovered that our local ISD provides educational resources as young a 36 months. Fortunately, almost all of these services are in-home. One less appointment to haul all his gear to. Yay.