urology and genetics

This morning we headed into CHEO for an appointment with Urology.  What a fabulous, quick and painless visit.  There was no examination, just the Doctor and Resident looking over Caelan's recent ultrasound.  Everything looked great - Hooray!  No UTI's since summer of 2009 so the prophylactic antibiotic that Caelan takes every day seems to be doing its job.  We're not going to make any changes as long as things are going well.  There was talk of perhaps having to repeat the STING procedure Caelan had done in April or the possibility of getting him off the antibiotic but we're going to wait a while longer and just see how he does.

From there we went to my fave place (said with LOTS of sarcasm), genetics. L Actually I shouldn't complain because it wasn't nearly as insulting as I remember it being.  Maybe it’s because we'd been through the entire head to toe exercise last year, the one where they dissect everything about our son.  Caelan handled it all pretty well, well everything except measuring his head circumference.  He had to throw a fit over that one... oh well, and he's never very happy when they measure his length either.  He has some serious issues with a measuring tape!!  Pictures were taken of his facial palsy, his typically CHARGE ear, his square palms and hockey stick crease on the palm of his hand. Here are his 'stats' at 26 months old:

• Head Circumference:  48.5cm
• Weight: 12.33 kg (about 27 lbs.)
• Height:  83.5cm

The Doctor was really happy with all the progress that Caelan's making.  She was thrilled with the "one good ear-one good eye" thing, since she was the one that gave us all the doom and gloom back in the NICU about deaf-blindness common in CHARGE and the resulting learning challenges.  I remember her spreading her arms to explain that at one end of the spectrum or on one hand, children with CHARGE were able to attend university and have a career.  While on the other hand or other end of the spectrum children with CHARGE were never able to live independently.  Then she advised us that because of the colobomas in each of his eyes his vision didn't look promising and because of some missing pieces in his inner ear that didn't show up on the MRI, his hearing didn't look promising... so she told us to prepare ourselves for him being at this (shaking the low- never living independently hand) end of the spectrum.

Now I know this wasn't news that she had pleasure delivering two years ago, but I gotta tell you it still felt really good to be able to go in today and show her everything Caelan is able to do!!  AND he's just getting started!!!

The best news is that our follow up appointment with genetics is in TWO years!!   Imagine all the showing off Caelan will be doing at that appointment!!!

Edit: 



Apparently this is a square palm.  Can you see the crease that looks like a hockey stick? 
The hook ends between his index and middle finger.

 And just for fun, because fingers goes with toes...