And Now, For Her Next Trick . . .

Now that we've got this heart thing about licked (knock wood), we need to address Peeper's digestive concerns.

When I called the pediatrician's office today to check on her Synagis shot, I also left a message for the doctor about yesterday's bloody poop, and asked if she'd like to actually see her when we're there tomorrow for the shot.

They called back to say that the shot had been approve, for both this month and next (The insurance company had lost the pre-certification request. Shocking.) and that she had lab orders for an abdominal x-ray, just to make sure that Peeper doesn't have any kind of obstruction or anything of a structural sort going on in her gut.

Shrike was at work already, so Peep and I were on our own for this one, but it went fine. I loaded her up and we went to the pediatrician's office to pick up the orders, then downstairs to the lab for the x-ray.

That went fine, other than having to juggle Peeper and the diaper bag and my coat (Spring Temperatures, where are you?!) all by myself.

(I don't know how all those poor little kids who only have one mom ever get anywhere. It generally takes all we've both got to manage ourselves.)

She got a bit fussy in the waiting room, but a littl goody fixed that right up. Of course, then it was our turn, so she was a bit indignant about that.

Once we got in the x-ray room, she was a complete little charmer, though, smiling at the techs, and just being as cute as could be.

I wasn't too thrilled about the fact that, in order to see her abdomen, they weren't able to do any ovarian shielding, and also a bit annoyed that, after having me just open up her outfit (metal snaps) but leave her diaper on, they had to go back and do a second, naked, image because the cloth diaper was too puffy and was obstructing their view so, you know, twice as much radiation for my future grandchildren.

But, I also know that, realistically, one little x-ray is nothing in the grand scheme of things, so I'm not too concerned about it.

(I started to say, "After all, I had at least one set of abdominal x-rays as a kid and my ovaries were fi. . . ." Oh. Nevermind. But, I am quite sure that had more to do with the thirty-nine-plus years they spent not being x-rayed, rather than the few seconds that they were.)

I made sure that the techs knew that we've got an appointment tomorrow morning, and they made a note that the x-ray needs to be read and the report faxed to the doctor in time for her to look at it before then.

We certainly hope that this x-ray doesn't turn up any real problems, but we sure would like to have some sort of an answer besides, "Well, it could be dairy. Stop eating cheese and let's see how she does."

If she were having the bloody stool on a regular basis, that would be much worse, but at least we'd be able to see if we were making it better with these changes, rather than just having to wait and see if we get another random incident.

So, it continues . . . .