awakeNine more days. If it's all right with
daimones I would like to have cake on Friday the 18th, to celebrate wherever I will be going. Also seeking volunteers to help paint and pack soon.Today: C is twelve months old, here for a weight check. Mother has been carrying around a mutation in her chromosomes all her life without knowing it, a 7-17 patrial translocation. Mother is normal. Elder sister is normal, having gotten either both chromosomes form Mom or both cfrom Dad, where it counts. C got one of each, so she's short on a little bit of one and has too much on a little bit of the other. Her chart is an inch and a half thick. Today, at weight check, this little girl is achieving her 3-4 month milestones and weighs ten pounds. She smiles at me, plays with the cap for her tracheostomy (tracheomalacia, her trachea cannot hold itself open), appears to listen as they discuss her G-tube feedings (she cannot eat enough to gain weight without it) and waves elfin hands in the air. She has an apnea monitor (all my trach kids do, Dr. F explains. What if the trach gets plugged with mucus?) and tiny feet the size of my keychain. Gaining weight. Increase the overnight feeds.
Outside the room, Dr. F looks at me, waves her hand at all the doors to her exam rooms. "That is why I'm a pediatrician. Anyone can see colds and flu and do uncomplicated physicals." And she smiles.
