Friday, April 4, 2008

Cause for Optimism

I wrote the post below last night, but for some reason (probably exhaustion) forgot to publish it until right now. I was really freaked out after yesterday's phone call with the nurse urging us to come in as soon as possible to get the blood drawn for all of the endocrinologist's requested labs, so that we could get in as soon as possible to see the doctors (which now included a geneticist as well as the endocrinologist). I had been comforted earlier by the pediatrician's lack of urgency over his test results, so I was pretty unsettled by the time I hung up the phone. I was especially scared that someone had finally seen the A1C/glycated hemoglobin test results and that was the instigator for all this panic.

So at 9:15 sharp this morning, Landon and I signed in at the pediatrician's. He was super smiley for all his nurses, I was worried about all the blood draws and finding out the A1C results. It didn't start out looking good. The lab tech was horrified to count up TWENTY-TWO requested labs, requiring FOURTEEN vials of blood from Landon's chubby little arm. He was fairly sure he would have to stick Landon at least twice and was already apologizing to us for it. Luckily, he is a phenomenal phlebotomist and tapped Landon's vein on the first try and had all the vials filled in less than five minutes. Landon didn't even notice and only protested when I restricted his attempted dance moves for the nurse. I was so grateful for the lab tech's skill- Landon inherited my small, shy veins and many an experienced nurse has had to poke him a few times to get blood.

We then met with the pediatrician for a few minutes and FINALLY got the result from the A1C test which was drawn on Tuesday and the result was normal!! This is very good news. It doesn't erase the high results from the prior glucose tests, but it does mean that over the past three months, on average, Landon's glucose levels have been normal. This reintroduces the possiblity that his earlier results were a fluke and moves us even further away from the possibility that he has juvenile diabetes right now. And the reason they were rushing to get the appointments scheduled on the same day was for our convenience and because they knew we were moving in less than 2 months. And we're seeing the geneticist just because his pediatrician still feels something could be underlying all his random issues and she wants to make the best effort at figuring out what that is.

So we left the pediatrician with Landon sporting a super cool band-aid and feeling very chipper and chatty after all his nurses cooed over him and me feeling much relieved. Landon also slept better last night (up briefly at 10:30, and then not again until 5) and I took an over the counter sleeping pill and got NINE hours of sleep. Despite the gray clouds and promise of rain, as I carried a continuously babbling Landon out to the car, I was feeling pretty chipper myself.

16 comments:

  1. I am so glad that Landon's blood work was normal. I am so glad you got some sleep too. You deserved that.

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  2. Awesome news about the A1C. Even though I am a type 1, and I feel no shame about it, it is not something you would ever "want". What do you think about participating in the next JDRF fund raiser/walk just because you now know what a lot of parents and kids are going through? We suffer in raising research dollars b/c people think insulin is a cure, which it is not.

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  3. Phenomenal Phlrbotomist is a phrase you dn't hear often enough.

    It sounds like something from a Children's book with a refrain like this:

    "Landon went to the doctor's,

    His Mum was scared
    His Dad had fears
    That Landon's veins
    Would cause him pain


    But wait and see..
    There was room for glee
    'cause at the Doctors there would be

    a phenomenal phlebotomist.

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  4. Hooray! I'm rooting for you guys!

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  5. To nic: It's an odd coincidence, but I actually have a long history of participating in JDRF fund raisers, which is how I knew that Landon was exhibiting some warnings signs of JD. Our summer league swim team always did a swim-a-thon for JDRF. One of the little boys on the team had JD and each year his mom would give us a talk and he would show us his pump and monitor and we all thought it was very cool. He was a great swimmer and "normal" kid and remembering that, and reading your and other people's comments, was comforting when we were getting Landon's high glucose results back.

    JP and I have long discussed the fact that once we have a little more money to give, we'd like to pick a single charity to really throw our support and efforts behind. Right now we donate to lots of causes through fund raisers our friends are doing and to our local animal shelters in Chicago. JDRF is definitely one I could see us supporting, whether or not Landon ends up having it. I've already found their website to be a great resource.

    And to rachel- that poem seriously cracked me up.

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  6. What a relief! I hope you can continue to get some rest too; I'm sure that helps immensely.

    Those blood draws are awful! Sounds like he did great though.

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  7. Very glad to hear about the glucose levels and the sleep. I hope everything continues to be better.

    We're worse than you -- we still don't have life insurance. I REALLY need to do that.

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  8. Yay!!!!!!!!!!!! I love seeing happy baby/happy Mommy posts.

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  9. Yeah! I am glad you got great results from the blood tests. Very glad.

    Peace.

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  10. hooray for things looking up! have been thinking of you this week and hoping you would actually find several successive hours of sleep somehow.

    i am so relieved that this is how you get to begin your weekend.

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  11. That is awesome news! Hopefully the geneticist will have similarly reassuring results for you. Yay. :)

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  12. Yeah! I'm so glad to see good news, both for Landon and for you - I bet the sleep helped a ton!

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  13. This is good news! And he is just too darn cute!!

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  14. so glad to hear some good news! all of our prayers and crossed fingers must've finally worked. ;)

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