Mott's Consult

Porter's consult with the pediatric urologist at Mott's... Dr. Bloom... went really well today.  First off he didn't seem to think that his opening was too narrow/small.  He wants us to do something like a "pee diary" for a few days and record when he voids and how frequently.  We have another appointment next Monday for an ultrasound to see if there are any internal issues that could be causing this.  He seemed to think that this might be a "phase" he would outgrow and that in a majority of the cases he's seen like this it turns out to be nothing wrong.  This surprises me because when Porter has these "pee episodes" (which seem to come and go... the past week has been bad with episodes of him feeling like he still needs to pee after he's peed) he gets so frustrated and upset at not being able to pee more... he's uncomfortable because he still feels like he has to go.  I'm hoping we'll have more answers next week!

I really loved Dr. Bloom.  He was SO great with Porter... had a silly bandz in his pocket for him and all sorts of these "cards" he randomly would give him throughout our visit... a Toy Story one, a dinosaur one, a Thomas card... just cute picture cards to keep him occupied.  He was fabulous.   He did seem concerned by his heart murmur, which we've known he's had for about 2 years now.  His pediatrician hasn't mentioned any concern for it and at his appt. Friday never even brought it up.  However, Dr. Bloom said he'd like to have the cardiologist up there check it out just to make sure it wasn't something we'd need to be concerned with in the future.  He said the murmur sounded a little odd and he had the nurse listen as well.  This was a little boggling to come out of a urology appointment with a cardiology referral.  However, he seemed like an extremely thorough and knowledgable doctor and I'm going to go with what he says.  

Porter and I had a great day together.  I took the whole day off work since his appointment was smack in the middle of the day.  We took Hudson to daycare (a little later than normal) and then headed to Old Navy to return some things, stopped into Toys R Us to scope out some possible gifts for Hudson's 3rd birthday and then went to Panera for lunch.  Porter loves the roast beef and cheese sandwich there LOL!  We had just enough time to squeeze that in before his appointment.  Afterward we stopped into Bivouac then went to the mall to return a shirt to Children's Place.   Porter ran off a little energy in the play area and then we were off to home!  

Something else that I think I'm going to mention next week (HA like he's my new pediatrician or something LOL!) is Porter's coughing/breathing.  His teachers mentioned to me near the end of the winter that Porter seemed to start coughing a lot as soon as they went outside into the cold air.  I think this was right after we all had the flu in February.  They said he does it often and that it seemed that he had some asthmatic symptoms.  And then today while running around at the play area for less than 5 minutes he was coughing up a storm... so badly I told him we had to go because I didn't want people to think he was sick.  And now that I think of it, the last 2 times we were at Briarwood play area he coughed badly while playing as well (because I remember feeling like every parent was staring at me like "Why do you have your sick kid running around hacking like that!").  I suppose that is something I should have looked into.  I know that kids who have had RSV (he was hospitalized with RSV when he was 2) have a higher chance of developing asthma, and about a year ago his pediatrician had said he had some wheezing when he was sick and that he could end up with asthma in the future.  

Sigh.  It's never ending, isn't it?  I'm just glad to have a little clearer path from this appointment, especially if it doesn't involve another surgery!  I'm kind of annoyed that the urologist in town was so quick to get him into surgery without any other options.  I guess that's what you get when you don't see a someone who specializes in things like this.  After this appointment today I was so impressed with the doctor and nurses up there that I was really wishing that U of M was our local hospital.  I was overly impressed with their thoroughness and interactions with Porter.