Dr. Appointments & A Surprise

Ryder’s first doctor appointment yesterday was to see his Kidney Doctor.  I prepped him in the car, telling him that the nurse would have to use a wand to look at both of his kidneys and we’d be able to see them on the computer screen.  To which he responded “I hope she doesn’t put a magic spell on me with her wand!”  He was totally fine with her doing the sonogram, but I forgot to mention that she would have to look at his bladder too.  So after she checked out both kidney’s, she moved the wand around front and Ryder said “Mom, I have another kidney you didn’t even know about!!”  He can always find ways to make us laugh!

His Kidney Doctor said that things look the same.  He still has some dilation and some pockets of fluid in his kidneys, but as long as things don’t ever look worse, he’s happy, which makes us happy!  We talked about potty training and how well Ryder’s doing with telling us when he has to go, but that we aren’t able to put underwear on him because even though he goes potty he will still be wet 15 minutes later.  Since we could see that his bladder was full on the sonogram, his Dr. convinced him to pee in a cup (all it took was bribery with a lollipop and a sticker!), so he was able to see that Ryder has control over when he goes and when he stops.  Then he did another sonogram, and sure enough his bladder wasn’t emptied.  So he’s basically just going pee enough to not feel the sensation of having to pee anymore and then stopping.  Because his bladder is so muscular, he can then just hold the rest in.  If this continues, there’s a test they’ll have to do to insert die into his bladder and watch and measure his bladder function…which he’ll have to be put to sleep for, blah.  BUT he said right now it’s too soon to make that call, this could still be normal signs of potty training when kids learn how to use that muscle.  So we’ll see how he’s doing at his next check-up in 6 months. 

Onto the next appointment, the eye doctor.  I gave Ryder the pep talk about all the tests the eye doctor would probably ask him to do, but this time I forgot to mention the eye drops…until we got in the appointment and I asked “will Ryder have to get drops this time?”  Wrong thing to say.  The Doctor said he wasn’t sure yet, he’d have to check a few things first.  He started shining objects onto the screen and asking Ryder, what do you see?  Ryder would say “a birthday cake, don’t put drops in my eyes.” “a cow, don’t put drops in my eyes”.  Thank goodness he didn’t have to get the drops.  For a refresher, the whole reason we have to follow up with an Ophthalmologist is because Ryder has a nerve in his brain that is being pinched and isn’t allowing his left eye to look all the way to the left, so he compensates by turning his head and focusing on things to his left with his right eye.  This is called VI Cranial Nerve Palsy.  Anyway, the Doctor said he is actually turning his head slightly less than he was last year which is a great sign that he’s getting better control over his eye.  We follow up again in one year.  If it doesn’t correct itself, this too will require surgery…so we’re praying for no surgery, obviously! 

I’m seriously about to put his Urologist, his Ophthalmologist, and his Physiatrist all in a room together and give them one chance to do whatever they have to do.  I’m so tired of hearing he’ll have to be put to sleep for this or for that, it makes me want to throw up even hearing about the possibility of him having to be put to sleep any more times for anything else.  Obviously we want what’s best for Ryder so we’ll continue to do what we have to do, but hopefully it ends up with less sedation and more of his body healing itself!  God has done amazing things for Ryder thus far, so we know that regardless he is safe in God’s care! 

So Daddy promised Ryder that if he was good at both appointments, we would take him to the Bass Pro Shop.  Is it normal that my 2 year old actually got excited and looked forward to this allllll day??  He was SUCH a good boy at his appointments and so cooperative, so of course you know where we went.  It made his whole day, he got to drive boats:

And 4-wheelers and golf carts and side-by-sides, oh this boy was in riding heaven!

But the REAL surprise came when we saw a jolly old man with long white hair, and a long white beard walking across the parking lot into the store.  I jokingly said “look there’s Santa Clause” before reading his shirt that said “ho-ho-ho”.  Then we realized it really WAS Santa, before he was all Santa’d up.  Ryder was on a mission, he wanted to see Santa and tell him what he wanted for Christmas!  This was so funny to me because we didn’t even mention Santa to Ryder last year, and even though we planned on joining in on all the hype this year, we hadn’t started talking about him yet.  But who needs us!  Ryder knew exactly what he needed to do without any coaching from us.  We stalled to give Santa a little time to become Santa, then made our way over to his workshop.  It was mid-day so we were pretty much the only one’s there.  Ryder ran as fast as he could down the long red aisle until he finally made it to Santa and hopped on his lap.  Santa said “what would the little lady like for Christmas?”  YES!  Even with a MOHAWK hat on, a shirt that said “Daddy’s Best Friend”, baggy jeans, and Timberland boots….LADY!  “It’s a BOY” I yelled from the sidelines (I have to make sure he gets on the right naughty or nice list, we don’t want Santa to show up with Barbies now do we?!)  Ryder ignored the lady comment because he had better things to talk about “I want a boat!!” Santa said “Oh do you want to go fishing?”  Ryder said “Ummm no, I just want to go for a ride on my new boat.  Okay? thanks!”