"I am not an expert, though I play one in real life"

I stole the title off another CP mom's blog. So very true today. In South African health care system you really have to be an advocate for your child (read about that here), so when one of the kids is diagnosed with something, I make a point of learning as much about it as I can. You just never know when you'll be the one having to educate the "professionals". Sometimes though, educating your self is harder than you'd think.

This morning "Lego" and I went for his CT scan at Jo'burg Gen. It was an interesting trip to say the least. Poor baby has really invisible veins, so it took a total of 8 people, 2 hours and probably 40+pricks to get his IV in, by which time the sedation they'd originally given him had mostly worn off. He was a pretty happy kid, especially when they said I could give him his bottle, but he just didn't want to fall asleep! After a LONG time of waiting to see if he would sleep, they decided to chance it and we eventually got to go into the CT room around 1:30, 6 hours after we'd arrived. Of course, he couldn't keep his head still, so the first scan they did was a total bust, as was the nurse's attempt to TAPE his head down. Finally I offered to try his dummy and holding him as still as possible, which let us get some usable images. It was a bit of a nightmare, but amazingly neither of us became irritable! He is definitely my favorite kid to take out!

8 hours after leaving the house, we were finally back and I took a look at the results of the scan. Or, I should say, I tried to take a look at them. Doctors do notoriously have bad handwriting, but usually I can figure it out. It didn't help that I don't know all that many brain-related terms... About 3 hours of squinting at the paper and many, many Google searches, I'd only managed to decipher about 2 lines. Happily, we are going to see Dr. Janet tomorrow, who will be able to explain it all. So far, it doesn't look very good, but that is what we were expecting.

Anyway, back to the title of the post, it just amazes me how many medical terms I now know (and can pronounce!) and how good my diagnosis and treatment of childhood illness has become. Watch this space - Dr. Kate is on the way! :-)

I've been reading a lot of blogs by parents of "special" kids, and also noticing them a lot more in the shops. At the moment I feel like God is telling me that I'll be keeping Lego, but thankfully that is something I won't need to decide for at least another year. When we go see Dr. Janet tomorrow I will also get some more information on the CP homes that she told us about, so that we can keep all of our options open.

Lego on Easter Sunday