Gracie is very sick

I don't know if her regular pediatrician, Dr. Len, just overlooks things because Gracie is on Medicaid, but she has been to see him three times in the last month, and she's still sick. Her teachers have told me that she just hasn't felt good all week, but when I called her doctor's office they said she's just congested because of the weather changing. Well, last night she started running fevers as high as 102.8. We were able to control them with Tylenol, so we didn't take her to the ER, but we knew she needed to be seen by a doctor this morning. I did not want to wait for two hours at Dr. Len's office just to be told again that she's just congested, so I took her to another pediatrician today and paid full price for a second opinion. $240 later we discover that she has very severe and advanced ear infections with fluid in both ears, which would have been very apparent two weeks ago, when Dr. Len saw her last. He had prescribed her zithromax for what he called a "mild inflamation" that he saw in one ear last week, but I guess it didn't work or something. I really like Dr. Len, but I'm so mad that this was allowed to get so out of control. I trusted his diagnosis several times, but now it looks like I'll be second-guessing everything from now on. Gracie has also lost almost two entire pounds in the last two weeks!

This new doctor, Dr. Conger at Kids First Pediatrics, said she is also concerned about the urinary tract infection Gracie had when she was two months old. She called the Lewisville ER where we took her back then and got her records, turns out they had done a 72-hour urine culture and never notified me of the results, but they notified Dr. Len. He in turn neglected to inform me that there were some abnormalities in some of the structures of Gracie's urine (?). Dr. Conger said a high percentage of UTIs in babies less than three months old are usually caused by an actual abnormality in the kidneys or bladder, so she wants to check it out. We're supposed to schedule an ultrasound of her entire urinary system and a VCUG, which is a catheter dye test to make sure her kidneys and bladder and everything in between are functioning okay. Both of these tests can be done through the hospital, which can then be billed to Medicaid (thank God).

Dr. Conger prescribed an antibiotic for the ear infections. Gracie's very lethargic because of the high fevers, and once Tylenol kicks in every four hours she perks up just enough to drink part of a bottle and snuggle around. She is sleeping a LOT, which Dr. Conger said to let her do as long as she wants as it's helping the infection, we just need to continue to monitor her temperature.

So please pray for our beautiful little girl! We can tell she's absolutely miserable, and we're very anxious to see how this antibiotic works.

On a good note, Gracie's fifth tooth is through! It is to the left side of her bottom front teeth. It's actually out quite a bit, which makes me think it came in early last week. So yay for five perfect pearlies so far! =)