(Someone needs to teach me how to put more than one picture in a post - and place it where I want it. For today, my post will be split into three because I have three pictures. . . sorry it's cumbersome. My beginnings as a blogger are helping me come to grips with my imperfection!!)
So, to continue the story, two years later, we find Abby, just as beautiful, just as sweet, and with head listing to the left just as much as before. And this is where the miracle comes in. I'm guessing some of you would describe "miracle" in this case to be some sort of "mystify the doctors" kind of story. Like, she woke up one morning and held her head straight. I choose to think that a miracle is anything that could only have happened through the intervention and mercy of God. I also choose to believe that sometimes God works his mysterious miracles in the hearts of people long before we see the outworkings of the miracle in our physical body. But I'm getting ahead of myself (that's the Miracle Part Two).
This part of the story is tedious with details, sorry, there's no way around it. I'll make it as brief as I can. I mentioned that the doctors had said there was nothing we could do. The other recommendation was to wait until she was 6 and get a CT scan on her neck, to determine if there was a surgical option. That was an option none of us wanted to consider, but if it were to become her only option, I would have pursued it - you may remember from my earlier post that I was relentless! At this point in the story, I received a bill from one of her medical providers that indicated we had met her deductible for the year 2008. Translation - all appointments from here on out are FREE. For a limited time only, non-renewable and non-transferrable. This put me on the fast track to second opinions. We crossed the Willamette river in Portland, Oregon - in more ways than one - and pursued opinions at the rival hospital.
I pause in the story to express my deep appreciation and respect for all the medical establishments in Portland. We received the best of care from both major hospitals. I would recommend either with no reservations. However, as with everything in life, they have specialties, and we needed to meet some new faces. Because they generally do not refer to one another, it was a big deal for me to forge my own way across the river and into a different specialist's office. For this I'm in debt to our family pediatrician, who gave referrals without appointments, and respected my opinions every step of the way.
I landed in the office of a Pediatric Orthopedic Surgeon. He talked with us for a total of 12 minutes, but his words rocked my expectations, and Abby's world. He casually, yet confidently, stated that he had seen kids with x-rays as bad as Abby's who hold their body straight, no problem. I asked him if I was hearing right, that Abby still had a hemivertebrae, but that it shouldn't be a limitation in her posture. He assured me that there was no orthopedic reason that she should have the degree of head tilt that she possessed. He encouraged me to take her to an eye doctor.
You need to understand that Abby already had two eye doctors. For two years they had said that, while there was a "chicken or the egg" kind of question, they were quite certain that her neck was the first problem and her eyes were the secondary problem. Two eye doctors, two physical therapists, one occupational therapist, a physiatrist, and a pediatric neurosurgeon had all written off her eyes as the problem. And in 12 minutes, this young orthopedic surgeon wants me rearrange my reality to fit his expectations?! I will be honest with you, I only made the appointment with a new eye doctor to prove him wrong so that we could get on with the business of finding the accurate solution to Abby's problem.
Within two minutes of being with the orthoptist (is that what you call the person who does all the eye tests before you get to meet the doctor?) she said, "Oh yeah, her eyes are driving her head down." I asked, very respectfully in my stunned state, if that couldn't be because of her neck tilt. . . "NO!" She interrupted me, "No, her eyes are the problem." I chose to save my questions for the doctor, surely he would have more room for discussion. "NO!! Absolutely not. Her neck is not the problem! Her eyes are." As my expectations collided with reality in that eye exam room, I confess that I sat in a state of shock and failed to ask all the right questions. As he explained that her right eye could not look to the left, but drifted up every time she tried, and that he could fix it with a relatively simply eye surgery, I wandered in my thoughts about necks and therapists and other eye exam rooms. . . . HOW COULD THIS BE??
No comments:
Post a Comment