Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Physicals for the boys

Boys went to Mousetrap to see Dr. Queyquep for their yearly physicals.  We always get them in right before camp. Camp requires that we get certain info filled out by the boys' docs, have their immunizations up to date and documented, etc. 

We had Nurse Julie and Nurse Nancy H here (Nancy has started doing 5 hours on Tuesdays with Colin during the day.  She usually does Casey).  We got out of the house on time, yay!  Made it to our 10:00 appointments.  It's so nice having the boys' pediatrician literally 4 minutes from the house.

Casey went first.  No real concerns.  Talked about how his hands feet get cold/mottled.  She just thinks it's the nature of the beast (SMA) and an autonomic response because the nerves aren't sending signals to his extremities to 'move' so the area becomes stagnant.  These are my words--not quite sure how she put it.  Nothing new to us, but just kind of concerning because it's never been this prevalent before.  We've also noticed that when we put him in the shower, his hand become bright red.  I guess that's the blood returning to his extremities again. 

With Colin it's a little different.  He does get the cold hands/feet sometimes but he seems to be more puffy/edemic in his hands lately.  He's lost some movement and range in his hands recently, especially in his pointer fingers.  We may try some compression socks (ha ha, Colin hates socks so I don't have much faith that he will wear them) and hand 'socks'.  I *think* we may be able to talk him into wearing them.  We'll see.  We do lots of range with him and we do some massage,but we'll have to try to do better, and try to keep his arms up, and not hanging down, as much as possible.

Casey's ears looked okay.  Some debris but no infection.  Colin was his waxy self, but fine.