Tuesday and Tace

Tuesday(8/28/12) was official doctor day.  Cade and I wanted to go to a dermatologist to get an overall check. With me being so fair skinned I try to stay on top of this. Since I had met my deductible having Daxon I figured why not. Cade had never been so we thought it might be wise for him to have an overall check as well.  We checked out great. I had a little wart burned off and that was it.
Then in the afternoon we had Tacen's appointment with the neurologist.  We'd been waiting since July 27th to get in.  Over a month!  We left early since we'd never been there and we knew we were supposed to arrive early.  It was a good thing because it took us a little while to locate parking and then go through the maze to get into the building. 
Here's what we found out!  Dr. Fulton checked Tacen over.  He checked his reflexes, and muscle tone all over his body.  Then he watched him walking and moving around.  We'd taken a new hot wheels car in the diaper bag for when we got out, but he found it and wanted to play with it. It ended up working out great because it distracted him and he played just like he normally would.  The Dr. said neurologically everything checked out great and that it thought his hindrance to walking could be 1 of 2 things. He either has a tethered spinal cord (which means in the womb his spinal cord never detached from his spine) or his pedicles of his lower lumbar are too close together (meaning his spine pedicles are causing a pinched nerve).  We won't know for sure until we get an MRI which unfortunately we won't be able to get for 4-5 weeks. There are only two machines in the Memphis area that service children.
If he has a tethered spinal cord it may be able to be surgically detached.  However, the cord looks very similar to the nerves for his legs and if cut wrong could cause paralysis.  There is not 100% chance this will be operable. If not than basically it would probably be something he'd have to learn to live with. If it is operable there is a specific spine dr we will see. Dr. Fulton said that he is the only guy he would let operate on him and that he was the guy we would see for this. That is comforting. All he does is work with the spine.   The better situation is the spinal pedicles. It sounds like the surgery is easier to do.  There is also a possibility that it is neither of these and then we're back to the drawing board.  Yet, we won't have any idea until the MRI which he will have to be sedated for.  So yet again we sit and wait.
We really want to get this figured out and taken care of for Tacen, but more than that we just want everything to be alright. Its hard to hear that your child has something that might need surgery. It scares me at the thought of losing him.  We are trusting in the drs though and asking lots of questions along the way!  We are also praying that all will go well. Stay tuned...

PS here's a few more things I wanted to remember about Tacen at his appointment. When Dr. Fulton checked his knee reflexes he picked up the hammer afterwards and tried to check them himself.  Dr Fulton was looking him over and asked him to sit in his lap, so he did.  He also kept dropping his car behind the dr. table and saying, "Uh, Oh!" a usual at dinner time.  The Dr. soon figured out this was a game.

Tacen's Walking

Tacen began walking when he was 10 months old. He did NOT want to crawl. He had the toddler toddle for quite a while. We kept thinking he'd grow out of it. A few times he even make progress towards running, but then he'd some to regress without any explanation.  Then we thought it was related to teething. He seemed to struggle and walk less when he was getting molars and eye teeth.  However, he had a really bad period of walking in March of this year and he wasn't teething. 
When we were in Utah in June we went to see Cade's cousin Bryan who is a podiatrist. He looked him over and noticed that his hamstrings were tight. He gave Cade some stretches to do and recommended that we see a Pediatric Orthopedic Doctor. Cade started doing the stretches and we saw some improvement. He was close to running yet again, but still isn't quite there.
We had Tacen's 2 year old appointment July 2 and we got a referral from our pediatrician for a Dr. Beaty at Campbell's Clinic. We called and made an appointment. The earliest they had was July 27th at 9am.  We took Tacen in. He did really well! He let them take his blood pressure while sitting on my lap, he let the doctor check him out and watch him walk and with my help of holding his toes he let them take a lower body x-ray!  Dr. Beaty came back to us to let us know that he checked out fine as far as his bones and alignment are concerned.  We are now in the process of meeting up a neurologist.  We will see where we go from there. Hopefully we can find some answers.
They gave Tacen a little gown to wear and he pretty much hated it. So we took it off, but I wanted to remember how cute he looked in it!