Our Trip to Children's

6 month old G

When Gentry turned 6 months old and we went to her appointment and the Doc decided that we should do a little blood work to check on the the pebble sized cyst on her forehead.  (It feels like a pebble too)  Well fast forward to a month of blood draws and heel pricks and at the end of December Dr. Davis decided to err on the side of caution and have Gentry see a Nephrologist (Kidney Doc, think Dr. House)  to check out some funky stuff in her blood.  

showing off her bump above her eyebrow

The appointment was this last Thursday at Children's in Dallas with Dr. Raymond Quigley.  My Mom (Lolli), Dad (Pops), Gentry and I headed to Children's for our 12:30 appointment at 11:00 AM.  Prior to her appointment I had received 2 calls and a piece of mail confirming her appointment and giving information about the visit which was very handy!  They only allow 2 adults per kid because it's flu season so my Dad stayed in the Lobby while we went to B5.  This hospital is huge and very cheerful!  My mom and I were impressed with all the friendly faces and fun details like beads in the lights and fun art.  We were escorted to the B elevator which was far, far away.  I brought the Moby wrap which came in handy!  

We did the normal wait in a small sitting area with only 2 other families and I filled out a ton of paper work.  Everyone was very chipper.  

We were called back and Gentry got stripped, weighed, measured, cuffed, scanned  and a urine bag taped to her.  There was a big mirror in there so it didn't take long before she noticed the pretty baby and started chatting with her. Or should I say squealing at the top of her lungs.

 We were then taken to a room to wait for her to fill the bag.  It didn't take long!  I was afraid we would be there FOREVER!  Then Dr. Quigley came in to say we have a healthy kid and that the lab work was incorrect...3 different times....WAHOO!  Just to be sure we went down to the labs there to have one more vial of blood taken.  I still haven't heard back but I figure no news is good news.  Interestingly, the phlebotomist said that they should have never done heel pricks on a kid 6 months and older and that was how they took her blood the last 2 tests at home!  This only confirms that if anything else major happens we are bookin' it to Dallas!  It helped that everyone was so kid friendly!  It only took 1 second for the phlebotomist to get Gentry stuck verses the hour of sticks it took to start all this mess!  So all in all we got good news.  News I was honestly expecting because Gentry is so healthy.  

As we were making the long walk back to the Lobby to leave all I could think about was that as happy as this place looked there were a lot of families not receiving good news.  We might of even passed a few kids with a terminal diagnosis.  Some may have even been having one of the worst days of their lives.  But we never passed an unhappy face.  Everyone was smiling.  They had chubby, no doubt swollen from medication, smiling, faces.  Hairless smiling faces.  In that moment I thanked God for my healthy girl, lifted up my friends, some having been at the same hospital that week, with children who do have chronic and possibly life threatening diseases,  God's comfort to those hurting and finally blessing to the men and women who work at Children's hospital!  And out the door and on with our lives we went.

 Thank you guys for praying and thinking of us on Thursday!  We had a great experience and great outcome.  We even celebrated by going to the Perot museum.   Gentry had a blast!