Ultrasounds... Not Just for Pregnant Women Anymore

Don't freak out, I didn't get an ultrasound.  We are not pregnant!  But Gabe and Brooke both got ultrasounds on the 19th of November.  Brooke has a soft lump on her back that our pediatrician sent us to a surgeon to look at, and Gabe has a harder lump on the bottom of his left foot.  The pediatrician told us to just have the surgeon look at that since we were going in for Brooke already.  We were hoping it would be a casual observation, but she made us fill out paperwork and do the copay for Gabe as well.  Gone are the days of a doctor doing a favor for someone.  Darn legalities!  No wonder my dad never encouraged any of us to become a doctor like he was.  But anyway, after a $40 copay for EACH child, the surgeon (Dr. Hendrickson) decided they should both get ultrasounds to see what these lumps are.  Neither child seeems to be bothered by them, but we want to know what is wrong, so we agreed to the ultrasounds. We were shocked to have a $200 copay for EACH child for the ultrasounds, but what are you going to do?  We can't just ignore it, so now we are into this for $480 so far.  Always fun to have bills like that right before Christmas! 

Brooke doesn't like being on her tummy, so it was tricky to get her to hold still for the ultrasound.  I held her while Sean kept Gabe out of trouble.  After Brooke was done, Gabe had his turn.  I took his photo because he looked so cute there on the table.  He wasn't enjoying it and kept saying he just wanted to go home.  It was hard for the technician to get a good look at his foot, so we had to go back out to the waiting room while she contacted a radiologist to come in and scan his foot again.  When it was all done, the radiologist said he didn't think Gabe's was much to worry about and we can probably just watch it to make sure it doesn't bother him.  If it does bother him, he will have to get an MRI to get a better look.  He said it's not a foreign object that has somehow entered his skin, so that's good, and he said it didn't look like anything else serious.  Possibly it's from the bee sting Gabe got on his foot over a year ago which may have caused a hematoma in his foot which then hardened and stayed inside.  Crazy, but that is about the only thing we can think of that has happened to his foot, so that seemed to explain it for now.

As for Brooke, he couldn't tell what her lump was.  He said it was shaped larger in the middle and flatter on the edges, like a muscle, but he didn't know for sure.  He said it didn't look like something too worrisome, so we should just discuss it with Dr. Hendrickson when we saw her and she could decide whether to remove it or just watch it.  So we really didn't worry much about it and we were waiting for our follow up appointment this week, but on Monday, Dr. Hendrickson's office called and said she wants Brooke to have an MRI so they can see this better.  Ugh!  That means poor little Brooke will probably have to be sedated so she holds still for the procedure.  And that probably means another $200 copay, if not more, since now it's not just the MRI, but the sedation as well.  But we will pay it because we want to make sure she's ok.  This will be Brooke's expensive Christmas present!  What fun for her... poor kid!  Like I said, she doesn't seem to be bothered by it, so that is good.  At least she isn't hurting, and she's so happy most of the time, so we haven't felt this was too big a problem.  Even though it will be expensive, we are glad we can get this stuff done and we hope it all turns out well.  It's not great insurance coverage, but how blessed we are that we DO have insurance!  Things could be a lot worse.

While I'm talking about Brooke, I'll mention that she rolled over for the first time yesterday!  She rolled from her back to her tummy, but got mad after about a minute because she couldn't roll back.  She's not the biggest fan of tummy time.  But she is progressing, including her ability to sleep through the night.  She's been doing it off and on for the past month or longer, but sometimes she wakes up and makes a lot of noise.  She just jabbers and wiggles around and kicks off her covers, but she doesn't cry.  I worry about her waking up others in the house so I often get up to feed her, but the past few nights I've ignored the noise and she eventually goes back to sleep and we are all happier in the morning!  Hard to believe she's already over five months old!  She is doing better in the bouncer seat and swing, and this girl loves her toes!  (Sorry these are all phone pics and not so great.) We'll keep you posted on how things go when we finally get the MRI and all that fun stuff.