Hope: One Less: Day 19

The alarm went off at the hotel bright and early at 5:30 so that we would all have time to get ready, eat, and be on-time for our appointment considering any traffic. She sat up immediately when the alarm went off. Chris convinced her to stay in bed while I got ready. She did pretty well since we were outside of our normal routine. Usually, she prefers to eat first before doing anything else. She packed up her new rolling backpack proudly and rolled it all over the place. For breakfast, she picked out bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, and cottage cheese. We think she thought the cottage cheese was rice or congee but she didn't want anything to do with it after trying it. She did a great job eating the bacon. She kept pointing to the empty seat at our booth and saying Kinsley's name. I guess she wanted her to join us for breakfast.

We headed to St. Louis Children's Hospital to the Endocrinology department to see Dr. Granados (I can't believe I missed the picture). The main concern was why she is so small and short for her age and trying to rule out or diagnose any major conditions. It could just be a product of her environment at the orphanage or an underlying medical issue. There is no medical history or size information about her parents since she was abandoned. She was very good for the doctor during the examination. The doctor was kind enough to prioritize what tests should be run today so we could determine our out-of-pocket costs and keep them reasonable. The doctor felt the celiac screening, basic metabolic panel, and insulin-like growth factor binding protein-3 were the most important and so we proceeded with those. She was going to check iron, but we had already completed that at the pediatric office before Christmas (and it was PERFECT!). There were two others (the insulin-like growth factor-1 and the karyotype) that the doctor felt were not as critical for today. The most time-consuming part was getting shuffled from office to office because no one could tell us what the costs of the tests were. First, we had the orders but no CPT codes. Then some of the CPT codes we were given were incorrect. Chris was able to talk to the correct office by phone to get the private pay prices (hooray for 40% cash discount). Then since we left off two of the tests, he had to go back to the doctor's office to have them correct the order. Meanwhile, she and I sat in the waiting room of the lab so she could eat goldfish and say "baby" to every little person she saw. It was finally our turn, and we had no idea what her reaction might be. We know that she is a resilient and brave girl, and today was no exception. She was a trooper. No tears. No biggie. I could not even get her to turn her head away from where the nurse was drawing out of her right arm. I think we had a great nurse too. She got a sucker and supergirl stickers. It was a long morning (and everyone was tired) so we opted to not have any more excursions and just head home. We stopped at Qdoba Mexican Grill in Collinsville for lunch so she could eat rice.

When we arrived home, I headed to the office, and she and Chris headed to Nana's for a visit. This would be so much better from Chris but I'll do my best to relay the info second-hand. I believe Chris was hoping Nana could entertain her while he answered some emails and returned some phone calls. I think things went pretty well, but she has a short attention span. I know she ate chips and drank water. After Nana's house, they went by to visit the Paap's shop. I believe she was a little disappointed when she got home and I was not there to greet her. For dinner, she had mini corndogs, chicken nuggets, and more scrambled eggs. She had a breakdown - lots of crying because I was not at home. Chris rocked her for a good twenty minutes trying to calm her down (it doesn't work; I have tried too). He was getting flustered fast and I was unavailable due to a work commitment. He called Nana and she was going to stop by our house on the way home. Nana could hear the hysteria (screaming) from the other end of the phone. Chris ended up taking her for a drive to fill up the car with fuel and evidently that worked. I think she thought they were going to see me.

I was a little startled when I pulled into an empty garage. Then Nana pulled in the drive after me. Nana updated me on the evenings events and I called Chris to let him know we were both there. She was thrilled when she got home. She wanted to sit on my lap, hold my hand, and cup my face in her hands. I am glad she needs me, but not at Chris' expense. I have no idea why she was so upset, but she was laughing about it. She was pretending to cry and scream and just laughed and carried on as she was telling me all about it. I made her some rice at her request and all was well in the Swing household. We are going to try this again tomorrow and hope for better results :)