Ortho Referral

Late last week, I had a voice mail from O’s developmental pediatrician. The message said she was calling to discuss the x-ray of Olivia’s spine. She asked me to call her back, preferably in the afternoon.

Now, let me say here that this doctor is awesome but she is also notoriously hard to get a hold of. Her staff is great at putting you off when you call in. I give them credit, it must be tough to constantly field calls for this doctor.

But the message also said to tell the nurse or secretary, whomever answered, that I was returning a call from the doctor herself.

And what do you know? It worked. I only had to talk to three staff members before finally being connected to the doctor.

Dr. S started out by saying that all the bones in Olivia’s spine are properly formed. Yay!! That is excellent news.

But…she said that the curve at the top of her spine, around her upper rib cage, a sort of S-curve that we all have, is more pronounced than your average person. Dr. S even gave me the name of a specific doctor she’d like Olivia to see.

She spoke with a colleague in orthopedics and that doctor agreed that given Olivia’s high risk for scoliosis she needs to be monitored. In fact, we’re being referred to a doctor in the orthopedics department at Riley. I will hear from them in the next few weeks to set up an appointment for her to be seen.

I know, some would sigh and said, “Great, another doctor, another specialist, more appointments.”

But you know what? If we can keep an eye on Olivia with the help of specialists and keep her from being in pain and/or needing extensive, invasive treatments later in life, I say bring on the specialists. Bring on the appointments. The more people watching out for her the better.

Sure, it takes an entire day to make it down to Riley and back for what is usually a half hour appointment but again, this is for Olivia’s health, her wellbeing. I can suck it up and do what needs to be one. After all, it’s not as if Olivia has a choice here. She has no choice but to deal with 5p- and all that entails. The very least I can do is make sure she sees every doctor, therapist, specialist that might be able to help her, to keep her healthy, to give her the tools to overcome obstacles and to be the very best Olivia she can be.