Day 775 - Motion Analysis Appt 👨🏻🦽 & First Dentist Appt 🦷
Monday, February 13th, 2023
👨🏻🦽 We started off the morning at the hospital for an appointment with "Motion Analysis" to discuss a stander and or medical stroller. These were recommended by the PT at St. Joe's. Mom wasn't a big fan of either because 1) James is already standing 2) We have done just fine accommodating our Baby Jogger to hold his equipment 3) We will soon be eliminating the ventilator and oxygen all together. So all in all it was a lot of back and forth of "research studies show" or "research studies do not show"...blah blah. Mom pointed out that the number one thing that is actually a problem right now is the fact that when James wants to scoot around on his butt he is still connected to a feeding pump and Farrell bag which Mom or Dad has to hold. Immediately after stating this the recommendation was to get James a wheelchair. She stated, "No one knows 100% if James will ever walk". 🙄 It's kind of like saying, "no one knows 100% if we're going to wake up tomorrow". Her love for statistics did not make for good bedside manners. Mom questioned if the hospital gets a kickback for pushing medical equipment. It just seemed really odd that they were so adamant about getting James something, anything. So they had a wheelchair for James to try. James picked it up quickly and started rolling forward towards Mom. It was really cool to see him move on his own and have the independence with hanging the feeding back on the back. He rolled forwards and backwards and even made a turn all within less than a minute. Her thought was that this was going to motivate James to want to walk because this way he could "get into trouble as a normal 2-year-old". Mom doesn't know if this is really accurate since he does scoot and has motivation to explore. Mom show them that by placing him on the crowd and having him scoot all over the place. They ended up getting his measurements and submitting the paperwork over to the third party wheelchair company who would be contacting Mom for next steps. James ended up picking a color, and she said he was the first kid to actually pick a color. It's a really pretty dark gray blue. The goal is that James will be walking before this wheelchair ever gets delivered. At that point then Mom can donate the chair to a family in need.
🦷 We got home just in time for James to take a quick nap so we could turn around and get back in the car to go to James' first dentist appointment. We booked this appointment two and a half months ago and they actually are not taking any patients unless you're medically complex. We had a great experience and James did excellent! They counted his teeth, which she has 8 on top and 8 on the bottom. The dentist told us that 16 is the minimum number that they're looking for at his age, but it is common for the fact that he was premature. Since Mom has been impression his teeth every morning and night consistently he was really good about understanding what was happening. At first the dental assistant brushed his teeth and then the dentist came and did some scaling removing any plaque from the gum lines. It is fairly common for children that are fed via G-tube to have issues with buildup. Simple things like eating food, biting down, and chewing all create saliva that washes away bacteria. G-tube kids do not get that benefit. The plan was not in 6 months we would have another visit determine whether or not James would need to go under anesthesia at St Joe's for a deep cleaning. Mom let her know that there is a very high chance James will be the decannulated and would not have a trach. She said in that case he may not need to go under for a cleaning. She said that he was one of the best patients she had ever had, considering that she sees a lot of toddlers.
🛀🏻🧼We ended the night with another big boy bath in the bathroom upstairs. Carefully sitting on a wash rag we decided to order an actual seat for the bathtub which would make it a lot of safer!
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