Working For It

Yesterday, my son had yet another doctor's appointment. As if the ADD, Sleep Issues and Hip problems weren't enough. Add in a neurologist.


When his ADD diagnosis was done, one part of the recommendation was that my son be seen by a neurologist. This has something to do with his being left-handed when he writes but right-handed dominant for everything else. To me, not a big deal. But, somewhat unusual and then when you tie it in with his clumsiness and such, it seemed as though it should be looked at.


So we went. I dismissed him early. Even took his DS so he'd have something to do on the 20 minute ride to the doctor's office.


We arrived with 30 minutes to spare. Heh. No big surprise to my boy. Who knew intuitively when we pulled into the parking lot and asked how early we were. We hung out in the parking lot, as I had to park a pretty far distance from the office.


The waiting room was empty. This made me wonder how good this doctor could be, if the waiting room was barren at 2:30 pm. My son did his math homework and we were call in as soon as the initial paperwork was completed.


Oh the fun. Hanging out in the crinkly paper room. My son hates this. Everything takes FOREVER in this tiny space.


The doctor arrived. A woman in her fifties, I'd say. She did a very thorough check of his reflexes. She took her steth-a-scope and listened to his forehead and the back of his head. I happen to mention to her that I didn't even realize the skull had a pulse. Turns out it doesn't but if something was wrong it would.

Then we discussed headaches. A favorite topic of mine, as a migraine experienced person. Turns out he gets lots of headaches. Perfectly normal in children. Hmph.

She went on to do strength testing. While you probably picture weights for this, she merely held down various appendages and asked him to push back on them with all his might. He appeared to do fine, until she got to his right leg. It's weak. She checked it several times, different ways. It's unusually weak.

Weak enough that she wondered if she should look at it further. Then she decided a better appraoch would be for us to wait one month and come back, she'd look at it again. She explained that, as with his left leg, he should be able to push her back up, but with his right, he can't.

So I made the obligatory appointment for one month.

As we walked out to the parking lot, I turned to my son and said ...

"Race ya to the car."

"Really?"

"YES, start running."

I threw my handbag under my arm and I RAN AS FAST AS I POSSIBLY COULD. I know parents aren't suppost to encourage racing in the parking lot but if his right leg was weak, let me see how weak.

I didn't cut him any slack and when he saw me taking the lead, he pushed harder. We were in the second parking lot, so it was probably half a football field away. (or what felt like it) I was impressed. He beat me to the car.

My unmedicalopinion? He's FINE.