Saturday, May 28, 2011

Follow-Up at the U of M

Thursday, Jeff, Clara, and I traveled, once again, to Ann Arbor to visit Clara's endocrinologist at The University of Michigan. My friend, Judith, came to my house with two of her kiddos to stay with our other three for the night (which they were super-excited about), and Clara looked forward to having her parents all to herself....'All Hail Queen Clara'. :-) (Or at least she likes to think of it that way.)

While our three oldest were at home renting movies, baking cookies, going to the park, and hosts of other fun things, Clara and I rode in style, as well. Jeff set up the "Bryant Limo" for our traveling pleasure. He folded the captain's chairs in the middle of the van under the floor board, put Clara's seat in the back, put a suitcase back there for me to prop my feet on, supplied blankets, and rented some movies for us to watch from Redbox. It was like our very own theater...mini-van style. :-) It did make the trip go much faster, and I got a great nap, to boot!

 Clara on her back-seat throne. :-)

Things were much less eventful than usual when we arrived at the U of M....it seems we are learning our way around...FINALLY. The only thing that scared me a little were all the "Under Renovation...Preparing for our Move" signs we saw all around the hospital, displayed by gigantic Big Birds. It seems they are moving all of Clara's doctor's offices into the actual Mott's Children's Hospital.  It looks like we'll be finding our way around again next time. :-) (I think I can I think I can.....) We did have one kind of funny thing happen when we arrived at the doctor's office. When they gave us the form to verify all of Clara's information, they had our employer listed as "Why Faction Ministries". Hee Hee...

While we did not expect conclusive answers at this visit, we did pray for some good news and positive results from Clara's additional medications these last three months. I asked the doctor a few of my questions, but it became obvious that, as usual, no one really has a whole lot of answers where Clara is concerned....yet. Not to mention, that doctor will not make eye contact with me...she always looks at Jeff. Don't get me wrong, my man is one smart man, and if you have an insurance question, he's your guy. But if you want to know something about Clara's medical history or about her day to day life, that is more my expertise. So, while her lack of eye contact with me and insistence upon asking Jeff all the questions is slightly frustrating to me, she is a very good doctor and she is great with Clara. I can't complain about that. :-) Clara had to go to the lab for a blood draw and then to radiology for an x-ray of her knee. The labs will tell us how her medication may need to be adjusted and the x-ray was to see if her bones had healed, neither of which we expected to know that day. When we were done, we left.

Clara being as sweet as sugar while she got her blood pressure taken. She was a champ, as always!


Clara and Dr. Hopwood


Waiting...

When we arrived home, we had a message from the doctor. She said that the x-rays that had been done on Clara three months ago had been lost (ugh!) and could I please send them a copy of them. Well, I must admit, this whole experience with the medical community over the last four years has made me realize how important it is to have a copy of everything for myself. I am a little reluctant to send them my only copy of her x-rays. I am going to contact her pediatrician on Tuesday to see if her has the software capability in his office to open the files on the disc and make a copy. If not, I will go from there. She did say, however, that Clara's bones are not healed and that there are still abnormalities. That was NOT what I wanted to hear. Once they have all of the information gathered, she said they would make some decisions on how to proceed. So for now, we just continue the way we have been up to this point. And we wait....some more....



I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who prayed for our family and Emilie after my last post. I cannot tell you that things were instantly better but I can absolutely tell you that I felt your prayers and experienced the peace that passes understanding. I feel like things have been a little better these last few days, so we will continue, in God's strength, to push forward and raise this sweet girl (and her three sisters) He has given us.

I pray this Memorial Day weekend is wonderful for everyone and I hope we NEVER forget the sacrifices that have been made by our brave soldiers to keep us a free country.

God Bless America!! Revive us again!

Love,
Jeannie

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