18 Month Well Visit
Today I interrupt your regularly scheduled vacation recap to give you a life update. Yesterday was Nick’s 18 month well visit. It ‘s over and I still can’t believe that we have had so many well visits that were at the point where Nick doesn’t go back for another one for six months! That’s right folks, no worry about any more shots or evil measurements until my little guy is two!
I was sad that we didn’t get to see Nick’s actual doctor today. She took a leave of absence a few months ago and they aren’t sure when she’ll return. I’m worried that we may need to choose a new doctor, but I guess I’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. The person Nick ended up seeing was the nurse practitioner. She was very nice, but I find that it’s difficult for him to see a different doctor for his well visits. He had to do the same thing for his six month visit and what we end up with is someone worrying about things that his actual doctor hasn’t shown any concern over.
Nick’s measurements were good. He weighed 21lbs 7.5oz which put him in the 3%. Since he hasn’t been eating much all week due to his extreme teething pain I was afraid his weight would be too low, but he gained a little over a pound from his last visit and he stayed in the same percentile. His height was 32in putting him in the 39%. I’m not sure how on this measurement was because it means he only grew three quarters of an inch during the last three months, but his measurements are often a little off, so it’s hard to tell which ones have been the most accurate. His head for the third well visit in a row was 18.75in which now puts him down to the 44% from what used to be the 60’s. It’s nice to see that his head is now mostly proportional to his body especially after the doctor we saw for his six month visit freaked us out over it.
The nurse didn’t spend a lot of time with us. She asked us some questions about Nick’s development. Some of them I was very surprised to hear because they seemed advanced for what I would expect an 18 month old to do. She was a bit concreted that Nick is usually sightly behind certain milestones, so she sent me home with an 18 month evaluation sheet to make sure he’s doing alright developmentally. I tried to explain to her that Nick is just a perfectionist, but she wanted us to be safe. I do understand that doctors are really pushed to be on top of these things since early detection is so beneficial for kids that have autism. I’m not concerned at all, but it was nice to see that Nick can do mostly everything on the sheet. Looking back I think she just worded things the wrong way for me. For example she asked if Nick could walk down the stairs, and I said he was still working on crawling down them. Well, come to find out from the sheet they want them to be able to walk down stairs holding someone’s hand and Nick has been doing that for months.
At the end Nick was really unhappy about getting his Hep A shot, but he got lucky that was the only one. It seems there is still a shortage on the DTap shot, so we again have to wait until the next appointment. I also asked about whether or not a flu shot would be OK due to Nick’s egg allergy and the nurse gave a big N.O. to that one. I guess that means that I have to get the shot at my physical next month to help protect Nick. *sigh*