15 Month Well Visit, 12 Months Adjusted, and 911 Call

I haven't had a chance to update about the past several days. On Thursday after work I picked Brandon up at the babysitter and brought him to the pediatrician for his 15 month well visit. We saw Dr. Kerensky. We alternate between seeing him and Dr. O'Brien but I will be sticking with Dr. O'Brien from now on unless I switch practices. Brandon weighed 20 pounds exactly (he was 20 pounds, 6 ounces on Monday but that was with clothes on) and he grew an inch so he is now 29 1/2 inches long. He is in the 5th percentile for weight for his actual age and 10th percentile for length for his actual age.

Dr. Kerensky started off the appointment by saying that Brandon is not expected to catch up on milestones and growth until he is 2 years old. The rest of the appointment he kept contradicting himself however and saying that as a 15 month old Brandon should be doing so and so. I would then ask what about as a 12 month old, which is the age Brandon should be, and he would say he was on target for a 12 month old. He does want Brandon to have early intervention come do a speech evaluation. I will be surprised if he qualifies since he has to have a 30 percent delay and I don't think he does but it doesn't hurt to have the evaluation done. Brandon babbles constantly and has a lot of consonant sounds along with his vowel sounds. The only real word he says is mama or mom. He waves hi and bye if you say hi or bye to him and will give you a high 5 if you ask him to. I talked to someone from early intervention on Friday and she said someone will get in touch with me Monday or Tuesday to set up the evaluation. We will see what happens.

Brandon got two shots at the pediatrician which he was not happy about. He had the MMR and the chicken pox vaccine. Both shots were given in his arm which was the first time he had a shot in his arm. He has always had his shots in his leg but after one they start to give them in the arm.

The best news we got from Dr. Kerensky is we don't need to hibernate all winter. Dr. Kerensky thinks Brandon is strong enough and big enough to fight RSV if he gets it and has shown no signs of chronic lung disease since he has not been on oxygen for over a year and has not had any nebulizer treatments. Obviously we will stay away from people who have been sick for the 5 days and we will be careful still about not going to super crowded places but it is nice to know that Brandon can continue to see the outside world.

Brandon's 12 month adjusted birthday was on Saturday. This was the day that Brandon was due. He had his first donut to celebrate his adjusted birthday and liked it a lot. Brandon took one step two times to me yesterday without holding on to anything. He still gets so nervous when he realizes he actually took a step. Grandma and Grandpa Newman watched Brandon yesterday and last night since Stu and I had a wedding.

This morning Brandon woke up and was very clingy and crying easily whenever I would walk away from him. He still has a cold so I didn't know if he didn't feel well or if he was upset that I was gone most of the day yesterday and I didn't put him down at night or if he was just tired. He went down for a nap 2 1/2 hours after he woke up and napped for 2 1/2 hours. When he woke up he was still being clingy. Stu and I were trying to decide what to do for the day. There was an Octoberfest in Pier Village that we were thinking of going to so I put Brandon down in the living room with Stu and walked away to go check the computer to see what time the Octoberfest was going on until. Brandon started to cry hysterically when I walked away and started to cry so hard that he was crying without sound. He held his breath from letting out a cry with no sound and next thing I heard was Stu telling me Brandon wasn't breathing. I ran into the living room and Brandon was turning blue and unconscious. Stu was screaming Brandon's name and told me to call 911. He then put Brandon on the floor and as soon as he did that Brandon started to cry with sound and his color came back. The ambulance still came (with a lot of our friends who are on the first aid squad) and Brandon was fine by the time they got here. He was smiling at them and waving. He did give us quite a scare. He has held his breath at the doctors when he gets shots. The nurses have told me to blow in his face when he does that because it makes him take a breath.