We checked in and were whisked right back. The kids got stickers and picture books to take home. I was quite impressed. The triage nurse got Gideon's vitals (as the blood pressure cuff was squeezing, Jonathan asked GOB if he knew what it was doing. Gideon, very matter-of-fact: "It's hurting me."), and then we went to a different room to meet with Misty, our nurse. We chatted with her for a bit and then met Dr. Stellaluna*. He's some sort of student/resident... the short-coat kind who are great because they actually have time to talk and listen and all that bedside manner stuff. After he ran through a slew of questions, in came Dr. Venkat.
There were more questions and answers, there was Dr. Stellaluna teaching Evelyn some mad dance skills while Gideon climbed up onto the exam table and tried to jump off. More talking, more trying to listen. It's nearly impossible to actually catch any useful information in this environment. We tried to remember things like whether Gideon had a cold when they did his bloodwork in June? And how many poopy diapers does he have a day? And exactly how much does he eat? I tried to ask questions like what does it mean that his sediment level was elevated in his June bloodwork? Dr. Venkat answered that one but I'm sure I was trying to prevent one or both children from destroying themselves and/or property so I can't remember the answer.
Dr. Venkat examined Gideon, which included the usual listening to his heart. More listening to his heart. And... still with the listening to his heart. A rectal exam to check for blood in the stool (none - yay!). Then they left and Misty came back and asked me to get Gideon to pee in a cup.
Seriously?
I took him to the bathroom and we were there forever trying to get him to pee into the little toilet hat thing. Then he pooped all over the place (yay post-rectal exam) and I tried to clean that up and people were knocking on the door and I had no diapers and he wasn't peeing since he'd just wet his diaper and again with the people knocking. So we went back to the room and Misty put this plastic bag contraption on him to capture the pee and we were sent to the phlebotamist for bloodwork. Then out to the waiting area to wait for the pee. It finally happened and then I got the joy of holding the poor kiddo's hand while he had the medical-grade adhesive all over his groin removed (it was holding the bag in place).
And then we left.
Oh, but the heart thing. After all the listening, Dr. Venkat mentioned a heart murmur. Oh, right, the heart murmur. Some doc in the NICU noticed that Gideon had a murmur. These are pretty common and are usually innocent. By the time we left the NICU, I despised all the doctors and nurses there, so I didn't give a lot of credit to eager first-year doctor who heard the murmur. But I did talk to our pediatrician about it, and he listened and was never concerned.
Now we'll be going to a pediatric cardiologist. Because a heart murmur alone doesn't mean too much. But a heart murmur with breathing problems at birth (hello, transient tachypnia, we meet again) and failure to thrive? Well, that's a recipe for a congenital heart defect.
Of course, it's just a maybe.
I shouldn't freak out or anything.
I definitely shouldn't google anything related to any of this.
Gideon is still happy and awesome and smart and funny and into everything. He's taking some kind of medication to increase his appetite. I'm trying not to know a lot about it - the medication I mean. We'll go back to the GI clinic in January (excellent timing, since we'll be paying for that specialty clinic visit entirely out of pocket with the new year re-setting the deductible). And we'll just take it one thing at a time.
*We both forgot this doc's name and when Evelyn tried to get it out of him, he said, "What does it look like my name is?" Weird question but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt for trying to be funny or something? So Evelyn said he looked like his name would be Stellaluna.
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