Tuesday, December 2, 2008

I'm a hypochondriac, so you're a hypochrondriac.

I hope Sabrina doesn't end up with my hypochondriac neurosis, but given my track record thus far, things aren't looking good for her.

She's almost 3 1/2 months old, and so far I have diagnosed her with seizures, epilepsy (you can have seizures without being epileptic, check it out on google if you don't believe me), acid reflux, baby acne, eczema, milk allergy, serious developmental delays, inverted nipples, torticollis and positional plagiocephaly (flat head syndrome). She has had one trip to urgent care, 5 other appointments (including 3 within a 5 day span) and several emails back and forth between her pediatrician and myself.

She had baby acne, is on meds for reflux, and the child's head
is extremely flat but apparently that's supposed to round out once she starts rolling over and sitting.

With my own hypochondria, I think the worst first and work my way backward. With Sabrina, I work the opposite way. It takes me a while to get all neurotic on her ass.

For example the seizures and/or epilepsy. The child has been a grunter from day one. Grunts in her sleep and grunted a lot when she was awake when she was really little. Didn't concern me one bit. I called it "fussying", and I often relayed that with a knowing smile. "Oh, that's just her fussiness!". One day I decided to email our pedi to see if there was anything we could do to make her more comfortable since the grunting, especially at night, was accompanied by some thrashing and general discontent. He replied that it sounded like we were doing everything we could, using gas drops and such, and that it was normal and she'd eventually grow out of it.

But at the end of the email he said, "As long as her breathing is fine, she'll be ok."

Huh.

I knew that during an exceptionally aggressive grunting fit she looked like she held her breath for moments, but it had never concerned me. I frantically responded to the email saying, "Well, sometimes she seems like she's holding her breath, is that normal?! Is that what you're talking about!?" I was frantic because at this point it was Friday afternoon and I knew he was probably gone for the day.

By Saturday morning we had our appointment to go to urgent care. I spent pretty much every waking minute watching her breathe (or not breathe, as the case were), googling her symptoms and crying inside, and telling Chris that I was going to videotape one of her "episodes" (as I now was calling them) so that the doctors could see her seizures first hand.

Our 5 minute appointment consisted of the pediatrician telling us she was perfect, just fussing and she was fine.

A few weeks passed and her fussiness suddenly got worse and she started screaming if I put her on her back. Trip to the doctor, he agreed with my diagnosis of reflux (while I don't necessarily say "here's my diagnosis", we all know what I'm doing when I innocently say, "Do you think it could be...") and started her on meds.

A day or two later, I decide what I originally thought was baby acne is not acne but actually eczema, which she undoubtedly developed due to a severe milk allergy. Back to the doctor who says, nope, it's baby acne. If it's bothering you, get some Aquaphor (which I did, and wow that stuff is amazing, isn't it?!).

Then came the flat head. How I missed it for so long, I have no idea. But suddenly one night I looked at her and thought, "Sweet Jesus,
where is the other half of her head?" Now with my hypochondria, believe it or not, the internet actually makes me feel better. I'll google something and instead of a brain tumor I'll find that I likely have a stress headache or something and I'll feel better. But with Sabrina, I go on with the same expectations, like "oh, they all have a flat head at some point, totally normal", but instead leave nearly in tears from what I have found. Like pictures of helmets, and pictures of babies with "severe flattened head syndrome" that look just like my baby...some of them even have rounder heads than hers!

I'll be honest. I was obsessed. Totally and utterly obsessed with my child's flat head. I considered hair pieces to cover the deformity. Looked for hats. Put headbands on her and spent hours wondering if that accentuated it or hid it. Repeatedly I was told her head will round out on it's own once she becomes mobile. I couldn't believe it. No matter who said it, including our pediatrician. Somewhere along the line, I stopped obsessing. Don't get me wrong - I am still extremely interested...just not obsessed.

Besides, my pediatrician basically asked me to stop emailing him about it.

5 comments:

emeraldwednesday said...

LOL! So glad you started a new blog.

Anonymous said...

Too funny! Glad she's okay although I was almost tempted to sent this to a friend with an daughter Sabrinas age and she is always complaining about her daughters flat head. I don't want to scare her though because she freaks easily and the helmet parts might make her cry.
Glad you started the new blog!

Anonymous said...

Hence, my reiterating that the girls were old school belly sleepers and made it through ok. I knew this would happen...there's no hope for her. It takes one to know one so that's not at all an insult. I'm sure she'll end up laughing you off when she's old enough to do it...she's beautiful and perfect and there's not a thing wrong with her. Dying to come over...will call you at the end of the week. Love, hugs and kisses for all!

Itsacin said...

THANKS for the laughs...really I needed this after all the IVF frustrations! I have the same warped sense of humor!

Faith, the Authoress said...

This is so gonna be me.