Austin Update

First, I want to say thanks for all the thoughts and prayers. It means a lot to us and I know that whatever we find out, we have our friends and family surrounding us (even if it can't be in person!).

We have tried very hard to just go on with life normally. I try not to ask Austin how he's feeling all the time or treat him any differently unless it truly is something I have to do. For instance, keeping him off his bike. It's very hard to do and there are days when he'll ask me again why he can't ride it, but when he is reminded about his safety, he is ok with it. He doesn't like it and I hate telling him no, but it's not a huge fight and for that I am grateful!

The hardest part for me is at night. Since it happened while he was sleeping, I have turned our baby monitor up all the way and every time I wake up at night (which is often since I'm at that uncomfortable point in my pregnancy), I listen to the monitor for a moment or two to make sure I don't hear any weird noises. Sometimes I go in there and just check on him. I don't think that will go away anytime soon. I wonder all the time if this has happened before and we just didn't know it.

Anyway, we had been waiting until sometime this week to be able to call the pediatric neurologist for an appointment. I started calling Tricare for the authorization number on Monday, a little earlier than the referral office told me to start calling, but I figured it couldn't hurt. It wasn't until Wednesday that they had processed the request and I had the number written on a piece of paper. I called the doctor's office and was told that they get the information from the insurance company and then call us.

That didn't work for me. I called later that day and talked to the lady that was in charge of doing that and explained that while I understood that they usually did things a different way, that I just couldn't wait any longer. She completely understood and said that she gets that a lot with parents who have kids coming to see the doctor after a first seizure. She said she'd be doing the same thing if it was her kid.

I got Austin an appointment for an EEG and then a consult with the doctor. I wish it was a little sooner, but I was actually expecting a little longer wait, so I'm pretty happy. Today, I got a call from them because as they were making the appt for his EEG, someone else was also making an appointment for an EEG and had gotten the same spot she scheduled him for. It just didn't show up on the computer until later that he didn't actually get scheduled for that time. Now it's just a few days later.

So, he'll have his EEG at the very beginning of September. He has to be sleep deprived for it and they want him to fall asleep during the procedure after staying awake for part of it. We'll see how that goes. I predict a hard day with him, but it's worth it to get the test done. The consult with the doctor isn't until mid-September.

We'll keep everyone updated as we know more, but so far, he's been doing great.

Oh, and I will be posting more pictures soon. I just haven't felt like uploading them from the camera. I have a few posts that need to be written, so look for those in the next few days!