Dr Evil (Note the Capital E)

Oh--I almost forgot to post about our horrible doctor appointment at the National Jewish Immunology Department on Wednesday. All we wanted was a simple blood test of the antibody levels in Annie's blood to see if her body had an immune response to her vaccinations. This is sort of the last check off on the list--and was recommended to us by 3 doctors...well the fellow takes our background information, consults with the doctor, who then proceeds to come in and tell us that we are hysterical and chasing shadows and we need to stop. We explained what we were looking for and he said we already had all the information we needed because we know Annie has a spleen and we know it is functioning (no howell-jollies). We explained about the pit count being elevated and he said that wasn't relevant. He berated me for EVER looking at the Internet...I explained to him that I was able to find quite a bit of relevant information on the internet, and that since he and his colleuges in different areas have such differing opinions, I, as my child's advocate have every right to seek out information. He said the other doctors were making us chase shadows...Mike was so good--asking why we should trust him over all others--he basically (and I am not kidding here) said that he is the most knowledgeable....I find it interesting that the NIH itself (see link above) thinks that the antibody titer test is useful but he doesn't. In the end we determined that the test would not harm Annie and had him do it.

The other recommendation we had was to get Annie a stronger vaccination against Pneumococcus..this came from Dr. Cordero and our pediatrician. Dr. Evil said that that vaccine does nothing for children. The APA and CDC both recommend that vaccine for kids 2-5 who could be high risk.....we were fuming...I have never felt so attached by a doctor...he chalked everything up to us being irrational grieving parents....we kept asking him why we should trust him over the other doctors....and that we didn't follow our gut when it came to Sophie (at least Mike's gut that the hemivertabra was somehow more serious) We have to now, we aren't turning Annie into our science experient by any means...she has had an echo and a spinal e-ray and a few blood tests, but all at the recommendation of doctors....I was happy to point out to Dr, Smarter than Everyone Else, that a simple Google search would have clued in the osteopath that hemivertabrae can be linked to asplenia......And I also got pleasure from telling him that I happen to know of a few parents whose kids have heterotaxy who diagnosed their own children with information they found on the Internet, because their damned doctors wouldn't believe them that something was wrong....look at a woman I know at work whose daugther was born with Congentital Heart Defect....often linked with other abonormalities of the intestines, spleen, liver, etc.....she was over 6 months old before her Mom had to REQUEST an ultrasound of her organs, and they found a kidney problem. So yes, I know doctors aren't perfect and that medicine is an art as well as a science---but I sure as hell wish that some of these doctors would stop pretending they know everything....there is a TON of evidence that they don't.......

We are still waiting on the results of the echo and the x-ray...been over a month now, I assume no news is good news but have put in a call just in case.....In the end we did get the test and the vaccine for Annie