A Good Visit

We had a good visit with our neurologist today. She really is sweet. At first, I wasn't so sure about her or even our time at UCLA. It seemed like such a huge place and we were getting lost in paperwork and nobody was noticing darby. I finally spoke up in an email to her a year ago and asked if she'd keep track of him since it seemed like nobody was! She has been so diligent to answer our emails and make sure his appointments get scheduled in good time ever since. We've learned to love UCLA, it just took some time to understand how their systems worked (which i still only slightly grasp)...

Back on topic. We saw her today for a quick checkup. She was so sympathetic to all of Darby's shunt problems he's been having. When we told her about last week's blip on the radar, she agreed with my opinion that something is probably on the horizon. And it might fail again sometime soon. She was so encouraging though. She just told me that this happens. Kids with shunts have problems all the time. We'll deal with this until he's probably about 20 years old. Which isn't the happiest thought in the world, but I'm glad we can now be prepared for what the future might hold.

She asked about his development and I commented that he'd definitely plateaued in the last couple months. He's not quite walking on his own or even making that many new sounds. I expressed that its frustrating to see other kids who were behind darby in development, seem to outgrow him. She was really encouraging that we all have time. Darby has more time to grow. She really think he will talk. She said one day he's just going to start... we just don't know when. It could take a couple more years, but it will come. It's hard to be patient! Even as I was in the drive thru line today, getting darby his celebratory strawberry milkshake (after a long hard day), he started to whine about the line being slow. I told him he needed to be patient and that I understood: its hard to be patient. As soon as I said it, I knew I was telling myself the same thing.

She also joked that we shouldn't be visiting any 3rd world countries any time soon. He's too medically fragile to be away from good medical care at a moments notice.

All in all, she said he looked good. Hopefully he'll get some time off from shunt issues soon. She even addressed helping us with anything we might need to get in the future, especially behavioral service help. She forewarned that we'll probably be dealing with more behaviors from him as time goes on... social or even communication frustration. We're going to think about that for a while. Who knows? Maybe a behaviorist would help? I'm more pessimistic. Darby has got to be the most stubborn child ever born. THE MOST. I'm not sure anyone but Jesus could help him to be less stubborn ;0)

We have another neurosurgery checkup appointment this week and our FIRST parent teacher conference on Friday! EEKS! Its crazy that this day is already here. I think I already know what they are going to say... Darby is just the most adorable blue eyed LOVE BUG we've ever seen. It's basically what they tell me everyday when I pick him up.

What do you think?

That's him showing me his belly button.

Cheeeeese! A pic at the end of our last hospital stay, last week.

At Disneyland... his first time on Alice in Wonderland... my mom and I look a little scared because we were sure he was going to bust out in tears at any moment. But he actually did well!