24 Month Checkup

[brigid]

Yesterday we had Niko’s 24 month check up, and we’re actually (somehow!) on schedule for this as his birthday is the 16th. His original appointment was scheduled for the end of March, then they called to reschedule and we rescheduled for the 12th, and then they called again and left a message saying we need to reschedule (what the yo) and I was totally unable to reach anyone at the practice because my calls kept getting routed to a hospital. I don’t even. We finally got a real appointment, which was a relief because in addition to needing to get shot full of OMG TOXINS!!!! right INTO HIS BLOODSTREAM!!!! (because that is totally how vaccines work, right?) Niko’s had a cough for like… uhm. A month and a half? I mean, he had a terrible cold with a cough (how terrible was the cold? So terrible that I wound up dressing him in a long sleeve shirt, pants, socks, slippers, and sweater and then he sat quietly on the couch, glassy eyed, cuddled under two blankets. I could tell when the fever broke because he shoved off all the blankets and plucked at the sweater in a frustrated way, finally insisted I exchange it for a lighter sweater.) and then… never really got rid of the cough. And he’d occasionally randomly run a low (99*) fever. But mostly no fever, just lots of coughing at night (enough to wake himself up!) and random coughing during the day. Not just a cough, either, but a “stop what he’s doing and grind out a gaspy asthmatic sounding cough, unable to breathe in, sometimes coughing till he gagged” type thing. And then he’d go back to whatever it was he was doing which, in retrospect, mostly involved him running around and yelling.

You know. As toddlers do.

I have asthma, and my dad has asthma, and my mom has chronic bronchitis, and I am worried about Niko developing asthma. So I tried to frame my description of his cough and my worries in a way that made it clear to his pediatrician that 1) it’s a problem and 2) it might be this BUT I might be over-worrying. She asked some good, pertinent questions, listened to us, and then spent a lot of time listening to his chest/lungs.

Niko has an albuterol inhaler and a spacer/mask, and we’re to use it on him 4 times a day (two puffs a time) and see if he improves. If he improves a little bit or doesn’t improve, we’re to call his pediatrician and figure out what to do next. If he does improve, we’re to wait until he has several good days (and nights) in a row, then stop using it unless he needs it again. If you have experience with toddler asthma and/or using an inhaler/spacer please tell me about your experiences.

Other than that, he’s fine. In good health. Got his Hep A jab and that brings him up to date. He isn’t in day care, so no TB screen.

Niko is 35 inches tall and 30 lbs 8 oz. His head circumference is 48.5cm, which is still a tiny head. TINY HEAD.

Here, have some Milestones:
Mastered Skills (most kids can do)

• Names at least six body parts. Well. He doesn’t name them. But he can point to his head, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, chest, arm, elbow, butt, hand, fingers, knees, legs, feet, and toes when told to in English or in Serbian. He can also point to them on other people, in drawings/diagrams, and on many animals.
• Half of speech is understandable. Yes-ish. He’s being raised more or less bilingual, and the non-English language is one I barely speak. So stuff I don’t always catch frequently turns out to be Serbian. Which is cool, but I can’t really judge how much of what he says is “understandable.” It’s not understood by me, but that’s because I’m, you know, ignorant.
• Makes two- to three-word sentences. Yes. He narrates things, and likes to talk about stuff that happened previously. Especially if involved trains, cars, or falling down.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do):

• Talks about self. Yes. He refers to himself as “baby.”
• Arranges things in categories. Yes. He groups like things in rows– blocks, cars, trains, etc. He also orders things by size sometimes. He does not group things by color, however.
• Can walk down stairs. Yes, although he does best when holding onto a banister or someone’s hand. Which I’d assume is normal, considering he has short legs and steps are pretty high up.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do):

• Begins to understand abstract concepts (e.g., sooner and later). Yes. In fact, we can use this to bargain: “we’ll read Mike Mulligan AFTER we cut your nails. But FIRST we’re going to cut your nails.” That sort of thing.
• Becomes attuned to gender differences. I’m not sure. He calls adult-female-appearing people “mama” and adult-male-appearing people “tata” and older-female-appearing people “baba.” But all children and babies are simply “baby.”
• Learns to jump. You have no idea how much this kid likes to jump. Up and down. Around. In circles. While singing. Across the entire apartment. He also stomps and marches. He is On! The! Move!

Related Posts

• 24 Month Checkup
• Make Monday & Carnival of Love
• Wordless Wednesday: The Haircut (at home)
• Ch…ch…ch…CHORES
• Is it toilet time?

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Comments

[waldo]

The cough could very well be his asthma acting up. I have 'atypical' asthma in that I never wheeze. I cough. It took until I was *25* freaking years old for someone to understand that this was asthma. Albuterol does wonders for making it STOP! 25 years of EVERY COUGH MEDICINE UNDER THE SUN did nothing... go figure. It wasn't an actual *cough* cough.

So sure, as you know, asthma's a drag, but knowing what it is now will save him MUCH grief growing up.

In other news, I'm going through my cookbooks, deciding what I want to burn your kitchen down with first. :)

[brigid]

Yeah, I have cough variant asthma (no wheezing, usually), so I was all "asthma? me? never!" and then I had bronchitis and the flu AT THE SAME TIME and saw a nurse who was all "wow, you're really sick! PS is your asthma being treated?" and later a physician giving me a physical said yup, sounds like asthma. I was a bit confused but WHATEVER! I HAD AN INHALER! I COULD BREATHE!

Later on, I read a thing about cough variant asthma and was all "Oh yeah. I totally have this. Thanks, every doctor I ever had growing up who totally failed to notice. Thanks a lot. Fuckers."

[waldo]

We didn't grow up too terribly far apart. I have a strong feeling "cough variant asthma" may not have been recognized AS asthma until like 1995 or so. I had an *awesome* pediatrician and if he had known to suspect that 'that same damn cough' I came to him with every year could have been asthma, he would have looked into it. It wasn't until I was old enough to really, really advocate for myself that I pushed for something other than 'the newest latest greatest cough syrup' and wanted to know WHAT IS THIS? that I got into a respiratory specialist and we got some answers.

While in college I had bronchitis, my weird cough and the flu all at once and the school's health service (hell's circus) gave me antibiotics, cough medicine and something else - all of which I ended up being allergic to. So when I got sick again I got more adament about them telling me WHY I was sick, and not just shoving meds at me. Then they started probing a little deeper. Then I got asthma meds and AMAZINGLY I got all better! Go figure! :)

[brigid]

When I was three, I got sick, and I was sick (with cough, runny nose, congestion, fever, and swollen tonsils) for two years. My tonsils never went down, and I had constant tonsilitis, strep throat, ear infections, and bronchitis... By the time I reached high school, it was routine for me to have bronchitis, complete with coughing-so-hard-I-pulled-muscles-and-puked, 2-3 times a year.

My pediatrician/GP refused to remove my tonsils, and advised me to lose weight. I was a chunky kid, but I didn't get FAT until puberty (and PCOS) kicked in.

I finally had my tonsils out when I was 20 and my health MASSIVELY improved.

I did not have an awesome pediatrician, and he dismissed most of my/my mom's complaints out of hand. Although he was liberal about prescribing Tylenol III. While non-"normal" asthmas may not have been recognized or classed as Asthma, the dude really fell down when it came to taking care of patients' medical needs, and we didn't have many options other than him/his practice.