Nephrology Appt

Well, we get to the nephrologist yesterday and Gavin's blood pressure was totally normal! Not that we are complaining, believe me. But he said that due to his risk factors, we might as well get everything checked out. That way we know (for now anyway) that everything is good. He also suggested a low sodium diet - which I will start tracking Gavin's food, but I believe he is not getting more than 2500 mg of sodium a day. I track what I eat and I rarely go over that (especially considering that Livestrong only has around 1600 mg for the recommended amount). One of the things that is out is Gatorade and sports drinks, which he was bummed about, but I think we will know if he can have these things on occasion once we start tracking his food and seeing how much he is really getting.

He's also not supposed to have any caffeine. So we will have to check labels, because there are some soda's like Sunkist Orange that you would think are ok that actually contain caffeine.

Before we left the office, he peed in a cup, and we were on our merry way to tour the hospital. First up was an echocardiagram, kind of an ultrasound of the heart. We had to go from the west side of the hospital over to the ER where the outpatient registration was. Once we checked in we had to go to "the farthest part of the hospital we could send you" according to the registrar to get the echo done. We got over there, and got in fairly quickly. He took his shirt off and they put the leads on him to measure his heart rate. I wasn't prepared for seeing those little sticky pads on his body and the wires coming from him - the size of the leads would have covered most of his abdomen when he was a baby. It was surreal how it sort of transported me back to the NICU.

Gavin tried to stay still and not talk as she did the echo. Unfortunately, I have no idea what I am looking for, and the tech didn't give any indication.

Then we went all the way back to where we originally started, the path lab in the same wing as the doctors office. Gavin was very nervous about the blood draw and even squealing with they tied on the rubber band. Clearly this boy is no longer desensitized from all his poking the first couple years of his life! He started crying when they used the alcohol wipe and I had to remind him that wasn't even the needle yet. (Gavin is a bit of a showboater, so I'm not sure how much this actually hurt vs he wanted the attention of it hurting). He squeezed my hand and we had to remind him the importance of keeping still. As the needle went in, he got in the poor lab tech's face and screamed "OWWWWWWWWWWWW" at the top of his lungs at her. He whimpered until it was done, and then he was just fine.

We then embarked on our mad rush to get Sam, get home, get snacks, and get dressed and to his soccer game. Where he did an amazing job and had several great assists and some good goals. It is so fun watching him evolve in this sport. I snapped some action shots which you will likely be seeing on here some time in, oh, November or so.