Laura, his nurse, greeted us, chatted us, and asked us lots of questions about Oliver's history, and was very nice. Oliver was asleep on me the whole time we were talking with his nurse. A few minutes later Dr. Gosain came in with two medical students (he didn't ask if they could be in there, they just were). He said hello, then said, "okay, let's take a look." Didn't tell us what he was going to do, didn't ask about our history himself, didn't ask what we were concerned about or anything....and Oliver was still sleeping. So I asked if we could please give Oliver a minute to wake up and the doctor seemed really annoyed with that. Anyway, I woke Oliver up, then laid him down on the table to try and get him a little more alert. And Dr. Gosain immediately started putting his hands all over Oliver's head and in his mouth. I was so angry--Oliver was still basically asleep! I got mad and said, "PLEASE give him a minute." The doctor put his hands up defensively and just stared at me. Never once did he talk to Oliver, tell me what he was doing, tell OLIVER what he was doing...anything. He gave me like 5 seconds then kept up with his exam. And poor Oliver was screaming.bloody.murder. Not the "I"m mad" cry, but the "I'm hurt!!" cry. Keep in mind, he had the same exam at Carle, and didn't shed a tear with Dr. Norbutt there, who was kind and gentle with Oliver. Dr. Gosain had NO bedside manner at all, and Oliver was barely awake with this guy being really rough with him, not talking to him at all. I got even more angry and picked up Oliver, and then the doctor did the rest of the exam with me holding Oliver, who was still crying really hard. It was really awful. I was just sort of in shock the whole time at how quickly it was going. I'm kicking myself that I wasn't more forward, telling him to stop, asking what he was doing, and making him interact with Oliver more. At the time though, I felt just sort of frozen. The doctor concluded that Oliver does not have Pierre Robin Sequence, b/c the distance between his jaws is not significant enough to make it that...and something else, but I don't even remember, honestly. He asked us if we had any other questions, and when we started asking about the breathing and nursing issues (WHY WE WERE THERE), he brushed us off and said to go to ENT.
Keep in mind, we originally HAD an appointment in ENT at Children's, and they called us and canceled it and told us to go see this guy. The doctor walked out. His medical students walked out (who never said a word to us at all). He was in the room with us mmaaaaaybe 2 minutes. Maybe. The appointment was just.awful. Poor Oliver seemed traumatized, and I certainly felt that way, too.
We sat there waiting for instructions from Laura while I nursed Oliver to calm him down. Laura came in and told us to followup in a year. (um, hell no). We left his office and went back down to the lobby of the hospital and just sat there for probably 10 minutes going back and forth about what we should do. We both felt sort of bewildered, and confused, like it was a waste of time to go all the way there for such an awful appointment, and we didn't get answers about breathing and breastfeeding, which were our main concerns.
So, we went up to the receptionist and explained what happened, and she (was great) took us up to patient relations. A wonderful woman there heard our story (and of course I was crying by then b/c I was just so frustrated and overwhelmed), and she was very apologetic and called over to the ENT manager who paged the doctor on call (Dr. Hoff). He came back after a surgery and we were able to meet with him. He was with us for about 25 minutes. He had read our history, talked to us about it, asked us questions, let us ask questions, and was awesome when he examined Oliver. He did scope Oliver and Oliver hated that (obviously), but was really great with him and with us. Had an excellent bedside manner and seemed caring and interested in our case. He told us that Oliver's breathing structures look great, and due to his small jaw, his tongue hits his uvula, causing the breathing obstruction/snorting that we hear. He recommended tummy, side or elevated back sleeping. He said small jaws in babies grow and catch up 70% of the time, and if not, he'll need surgery by age 4 to correct the jaw. He also said that because of Oliver's small jaw, his tongue is further back in his mouth, and just isn't long enough to get a good suction on my breast when he's nursing. He said there's just nothing we can do about that, that his body just needs to grow. He said as long as nursing is working well for us (he's growing and I'm not in too much discomfort) to keep doing it and don't worry about the suction. He also said Oliver's vocal cords and throat don't show any signs of acid damage from reflux, and we shouldn't give the antacid medication (which we hadn't yet, I really didn't want to, but felt like it was something I could do for Oliver). Dr. Hoff also said that if we wanted to follow up with a speech pathologist to help us with positioning and better burping techniques to help with Oliver's air intake, we could. We probably won't, but it's nice to have that suggestion if we need it.
At the end of our appointment, I asked who we should see if, down the road, O does need surgery. Dr. Hoff hesitated and wrote down a couple of names...people who used to work in plastic surgery at Children's but quit...when Dr. Gosain became head of the department. Apparently quite a few people don't particularly love working with him. Doesn't surprise me one.bit. (I told Jason that I wanted to write a scathing blog post about Dr. Gosain and was fantasizing about moms googling his name and reading my blog post, and then no one would see him anymore and he wouldn't work at Chilldren's anymore all because of me. Hah. I think I need some prayer for forgiveness...)
SO. All in all, it was a great appointment in ENT. Dr. Hoff gave us answers to our questions and was really great. We have peace of mind finally knowing O's situation and knowing that he is healthy most of all! Nothing we can do to change anything right now, and hopefully he'll just grow and we won't have to do anything in the future.
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