Siena's MRI

This was a pretty crazy busy month leading up to Christmas. We had so much going on that Christmas eve snuck up on us. With Siena's MRI being Christmas eve that kind of took away from slowly moving into Christmas mode.

We got to Sutter Memorial in Sacramento at 7:45 to check in for the MRI. Siena was a total trooper and wasn't even complaining about not being able to eat or drink. As I was filling out the paperwork I noticed that they had Siena down for a "MRI of the brain with anesthesia". No mention of the neck. I went up to the front desk and asked the receptionist if her neck was also going to be scanned. She said no, the order was just for her brain. I said to her that the main reason we were here was for her neck and the brain was an additional thing to look at. I told her it was my understanding that her neck was being scanned to look for congenitial muscle shortening. She said she would call the neurologist office and double check. After a few minutes she called me back up and said the office is closed and she could not get ahold of any one. I told her she'd better try again because there was no way I was putting my daughter under anesthesia twice or paying twice for an MRI! She ended up calling the neurologist at home and found out that I WAS CORRECT!!!! He messed up and didn't put it on the order. Let this be a lesson to every one who has to deal with doctors and hospitals. You have to be your own advoate to get things done correctly!!!

So after things were straightened out the nurse came out and put some numbing gel on Siena's wrists so when they put the IV in she would not feel it as much. When it was Siena's turn we went into the room where she was going to be put under. She was very uneasy when she was on the table. She knew something was up. She stared crying when they put in her IV. Then she got really pissed. But after 5 seconds she was out cold. It totally caught me off guard. My eyes welled up with tears but I held them back. I flashed back to my daily job and they way I was comforting Siena and telling her everything would be ok was exactly how people do when we put their animals to sleep. I was in shock when I realized what I was doing and then seeing the look on her face scared me. I hope we don't have to do that again anytime soon!

While Siena had her scan, which took 1 1/2 hours, Mike and I sat in the waiting room and addressed our holiday cards. Better late than never right? It was actually nice because it kept our minds off of waiting for her to be finished.

When they brought us in to see Siena, she was lying on the table with the IV in her hand and oxygen tubes in her nose. When I started talking to her she began moving and rubbing at the tubes. They took off the oxygen tubes and the IV and told us to have a seat and try to get her to wake up. Well that was easier said than done. After about 30 minutes we finally resorted to taking off her clothes and rubbing her with wet baby wipes. She woke up happy as a clam like nothing ever happened. I was so relieved to have my little girl back. :-)

Neurologist Appointment

Well that was fast. Between 6pm last night and 9 am this morning, Siena got an appointment scheduled for the neurologist for this afternoon. Talk about getting things moving. So at the visit the neurologist examined Siena and determined that with out the head tilt she is a normal 9 month old. With the type of head tilt he would have said she had torticollis but because the head tilt comes and goes he does not think she has it. So to rule out any major problems he wants Siena to have a brain scan to make sure that the brain, muscular system and nervous system are all working correctly together. He wants to make sure that during the pregnancy the development of the nervous system and or muscular system wasn't underdeveloped.

So in order to do a brain scan Siena needs to be put under ansethesia for an hour. Any movement messes up the test. So I put in a call to the woman that sets up the anesthesia appointments to make sure we get a very early morning appointment because they don't want the babies eating for 8 hours!!!! They can have clear liquids like water, apple juice and gatorade but no nursing or formula or solid foods.

The Dr. thinks that everything is going to be totally normal but doesn't want to miss something. So we are to continue with physical therapy for now and wait until we can get the scan set up.

Physical Therapy Update

Because Siena looked like this last week and wasn't 100% better today, we are going to be continuing on with therapy for the next month, twice a week. We are also taking her to a neurologist to have another opinion on her neck. Neither the pediatrician nor the physical therapist is quite sure why she continues to tilt her head to the left. I for sure feel like this is all related to the pregnancy. I mean how can it not be. She was an IUGR baby and I don't see how it wouldn't at least cause one issue. Let's hope that there isn't any significant findings with the neurologist and that maybe this is just tight muscles from the pregnancy.