A Doctor is not THE Dr.

I woke up at 2:30 AM yesterday. You know how you are worried and excited the night before you leave on a trip? You go to bed late preparing for the next day's adventures, you wake up in the middle of the night terrified that you will sleep through your alarm and miss your flight, and then fall asleep right before the buzzer actually shocks you back to the land of living.

Well, I have surrendered this feeling generated from beach retreats for Dr. visits. The excitement is not the same. It is a worried anticipation. Will this finally be the Dr. who helps our son? Will this be the last time I have to relive my son's painful past and current regression? Will I get to stop talking about my boobs and son's shit for once? Yeah, it gets that raw in there for those of you who don't know. There is a constant tug of war between what they want to know and what you want to tell them. Very rarely are the two the same. And then, even though you are there for an hour and a half that always turns into two hours, you leave unsatisfied and frustrated.

You try to stay strong in your conviction and intentions, you even go so far as to not only open that file you have spent hours and hours preparing, you actually present the studies of tests and treatments you are looking at and leave them behind with the hopes that it won't get shuffled to the back of the file. You think: surely I won't have to sell this to this Dr. Then the Dr. asks you, with a straight face, "Why didn't you just take Brady to this Dr. at this institute to get this testing?" "That's a good question," you both say and think out loud.

What the fuck AM I doing in your office, taking my kid to see another professional who is supposed to help, supposed to have helped, kids like him? Who starts out your visit with a quick consult with a mental health professional who touts the benefits of psychiatric medication to stop your son's compulsions because "once that loop gets started it is hard to stop without them and if you let it go more than a month more you will be dealing with entrenched behavior." Thanks for the pep talk champ. When he led us down the hall and opened the door and there were two overstuffed microfiber couches I just about put my brakes on.

I was asked repeatedly what I wanted from the visit, and what my priorities were. Then he asked me what my obstacles were. Well, currently, douchebag, my only obstacle is finding a Dr. who actually wants to treat my son's acute illness and underlying reason for his current regression. No, my husband isn't uninvolved or unsupportive, he just has to go to work and pay for all the these ridiculously expensive office visits, lab work and meds/supplements. I wonder if he has any idea how many of these appointments I have had him sit in on, taken time off work for, arranged care for my other kids, only to have it be a waste of time. The truth is that while he is both supportive financially and emotionally, this falls into the realm of my responsibility. Ever hear of divide and conquer? That's been our policy since we had twins and hasn't stopped since.

Ever feel like your picture of how the world should work is so different than everyone else's that it's like you are not even living on the same planet? I pretty much walk around like that most of the time. I just don't want to pay someone hundreds of dollars an hour to feel that way. If I want to really feel that way and for free, I just click here.

I'm not saying everything was bad. It motivated the hell out of me to take my son to one of the top docs in the country because this local shit just ain't cutting it. I think I'll also email Obama about his healthcare plan just to let him know that the war on drugs is over and I can get medical marijuana WAY easier than an antibiotic for my sick son. But a psych med, that is the easiest to score of all! The Dr. was a very nice and personable, if not completely all over the place and disorganized, man. But experienced I would not say he was, and Yoda backs me up on that one.

So, where does that leave us testing and treatment wise? I guess he claims to have a hard time with other people's testing, but I told him he would just have to work it out. I think I'll put together a spreadsheet with all of Brady's lab values. I am sure it will be useful for his next Dr. too. As far as treatments, aside from knocking his other Dr. for going straight to IVIG (oh, I'm sorry and we left your office with what treatment in hand...oh right your coQ10 has soy in it so nothing), he is thinking:

-HBOT:uh, not sure about that one. Pending lottery check and magic 8-ball

-IJ penicillin and steroids: sounds good, why couldn't we get that done right away? Doesn't believe in prophylactic antibiotics.

-More IVIG if antibiotics or taking out tonsils doesn't work. See there's a formula on this chart, they told me so. No skipping to the front of the line.

-Viruses: does he have them and will we go after them? Everyone has viruses. Not thinking I am going down that road to stir them up until I get a really good idea about WTF is going on with his immune system and I think he can handle it. Ordered another HHV6 Titer. UGH!

-Allergies- retest those bad boys. It has been a really long time and kids do move from being allergic from one thing to another. OK. Especially since they now have allerbling

-Mitochondrial dysfunction: Doesn't think changing carnitine to the prescription formulation matters. Does think changing CoQ10 does. Obviously not going to do the testing that we think is the only way to find out for sure this is the reason for his regression.

-Immune function: won't say why this happened for sure. Has ordered more and more bloodwork. I don't know if I can do it. Only new test seems to be CMV IgG and IgM. I think I just don't have the records for immunoglobulins test so he ordered a new one. Yeehaw!

- Glutathione: Duh. We know it will either be low or normal. Doesn't matter. He is already getting the precursor (NAC) in his trio injection and he can't tolerate the cream. Moving on.

I don't know what I am going to do next. But this guy is for sure not THE Dr. He is A Doctor. One in the line of many. Does anyone ever wonder how many licks it takes to get the center of an ASD kid's recovery? Or, as Abby's favorite new show ends each episode: they can't help but wonder why it took so long and so many Doctors to find the answer.

Is it because there is no answer? Or not the answer they want to hear? Or just not one easy answer?