Shriners Visit

Wouldn't it sure calm your nerves if you met this guy at the front desk of every hospital? Today we visited Shriners Hospital For Children in Sacramento. I was very impressed with how kind everyone was the minute you walked in the door. This was the clown who was sitting in the check in desk and pulled out his card to give to Nolan. He told Nolan to put this card in the garage if you have any rats and it'll scare them away. :P We also met several "therapy dogs" that are used to help the children be happy. The nurses were all very nice and they gave nolan a nice gift to welcome him. It was a crayola glow station drawing thing. They must have a ton of toy donations come in to be able to give a gift like that to every kid. Anyways, after all the millions of questions the nurses asked we finally met the doctor. He comes in and the second Nolan sees him he says, "You look like an OLD man!" Well, he did have a full head of white hair and was pretty wrinkly, so leave it up to my son to tell ya how it is! :) I'd immagine working in a hospital full of children he has several funny jokes to tell his wife when he goes home that night. Anyways, he was a really nice doctor. I learned some things I never knew before. At first I kind of thought this was a joke because it seemed so off the topic, but the more I think about it, it could quite possibly be correct. The Doctor explained it pretty well to where it made sense, but basically when Nolan wakes up with "foot cramps," most likely it's just him having a nightmare and since we've been giving him foot massages every time he wakes up screaming, that's automatically what the problem is, right? So, yes, he could be having growing pains, but most likely there's nothing really wrong, it's just a nightmare he's having where he's half awake anyway and we assume it's just his feet so we start massaging them. So, he told us to put a glass of water by his bed and for the next few times when he wakes up screaming to tell him to take a drink and show him how to rub his feet himself. Than, gradually when he wakes up screaming, there won't be so much focus on his feet. I don't know if that made sense and really it didn't sound very good to me. Sometimes Nolan we'll be crawling to our room because it hurts too bad to walk, so I don't know, but I guess I'm willing to try it. Anyways, we than went to the x-ray room and took an x-ray of Nolan's legs and both feet, which we've had done before and that's the main reason why we came. We knew that his bones were messed up and were told that he would need surgery to fix it or it could cause arthritis down the road. Well, his legs were just fine. His feet, still the same thing, nothing worse. The left foot has the four toes, with one of the toes missing a digit and it curls under the third toe. His right foot has all five toes, but only four bones and one of them splits into two toes. However, this doctor said no surgery was necessary at this point and he doesn't think there will be a problem with arthritis. It's so interesting to me how different two doctors opinions can be. Who knows, the first doctor could have been in it only for the money. Well, at Shriners, it's all free, so he's not looking for another patient to make money off of. The Doctor said he doesn't want to mess with bones in the feet unless it's really necessary. It may look funny and be a little uncomfortable, but that's easier to deal with than surgery and all that. The main problem we'll need to keep an eye on is his 4 toed foot, which is a lot more narrow, will eventually have problems in normal shoes. There's no reason to spend money on it now he said, since Nolan's feet are still growing, but when he's around 14 or so, we'll need to get something to insert into the shoe so his foot isn't flappin around in there and getting all blistered up or whatever. So, every 2 years we should come in and get it looked at, but as of now, surgery is not necessary. Wahoo! I am a Shriners fan!!! Some day when I have a million dollars, I'll donate it to Shriners Hospitals. :) Or at least a thousand dollars. Some day...