Doctor Updates

I took Dakota to the doctor last Tuesday morning for his depression. We saw the nurse practitioner since Dakota's regular doctor was gone. She was really good with him. She decided to up the dosage of Dakota's Zoloft, but needed to talk to his regular doctor first. He took his last pill that night, and we wanted to hold off on refilling his medicine until they called in the new dosage. Dakota ended up missing his dose on Wednesday night, and Thursday morning was one of the worst mornings we've had with him. Oddly though, his meltdown didn't start until after he was dressed. All we had left to do was put his shoes and coat on – which was good because there was no way we could have gotten him dressed otherwise. Even though it was pretty cold, John had to carry Dakota outside without his shoes and coat on. He was screaming and crying, and there was a cop parked right beside our apartment clocking people driving by. It was pretty embarrassing. Dakota was holding onto the door frame of the Explorer, and we were trying to push him inside. With how loud he was, there was no way the cop didn't notice. On one hand, I was freaking out – afraid that the cop would think we were hurting our child. On the other hand, I was kind of hoping that the cop would come over and help us get Dakota in. He never came over though. John was late for work again and the kids were late for school. Usually after Dakota gets to school, the rest of his day is fine. He had a really sensitive day though. He said that nobody was being mean to him or anything, he just couldn't keep from crying. The school actually called me and let Dakota talk to me. They've never had to do anything like that before. Thursday night, he started on the higher dosage of the Zoloft, and things have been going good so far. Tomorrow, we go up on the dose even more. I don't think that the doctor had taken Dakota's fast weight/height increase into consideration, the dose probably should have been increased a long time ago. He is basically the size of an adult now (5'0”, 112 pounds). Maybe now things will get better. I hope.

I had an appointment with the breast surgeon this last week. She didn't seem concerned and didn't think a biopsy was needed. She told me to get it checked again in 3 months. I haven't had any pain since around the time I had the ultrasound done, but the pain started up again a couple of days after that appointment.

I got an appointment to see a lyme doctor, but I have to wait until September to get in. In a way, that is a good thing because the appointment is going to cost me $490 and I have to pay upfront. They don't file insurance. That amount doesn't include any testing at all (and I'm told that this doctor is very reasonably priced). There is a ton of different tests that they do, but it's up to the patient on what test they get done because it's so expensive. At the very least, I'll have to have the Western blot test, which is the best way to check for lyme – and it's $260. There is no way I can have all the testing done because it will cost $3,000 - $4,000 for everything. I'm hoping that we can save enough money by September to just have the bare minimum done.