Appt with Dr Hollman

Elise saw Dr Hollman today for her semi-annual check-up. Dr Hollman was very pleased with Elise's progress and the amount of speech therapy that she continues to have. I explained Elise's "rules" that we have determined, and she thought it was very "odd." I told her that Elise has baffled us all...she's even called "a research paper" by her speech therapist. But, I also told her how proud we are of all that she has accomplished and how far she has come. She seemed to share the same pride about Elise. She said that her low muscle tone was still very apparent, and that it just might be "her." She said that some kids with low muscle tone seem to "grow out of it" or get more tone in their muscles with age...she doesn't think that this will be the case with Elise...but, it is also nothing to be concerned about. We talked again about the need to prepare for reading difficulties when she gets in school because..."preschoolers with language problems tend to be school-age children with reading problems." We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I told her that now that we have Lydia, Elise's issues seem so minor to us. She agreed that Elise seems a lot like a typical 2-yr old.

I also talked to her about how Dr Shoffner said that after we get Lydia's diagnosis, we will then be able to test Elise (and maybe even Audrey) for some of the same issues. She seemed a little skeptical about that...she said we should probably meet together to discuss the goals before going into a huge testing spill for all of our kids. She said, "You could drive yourself crazy with that....you, yourself could have some problems that may develop in your 80's or something, but do you really want to subject yourself to all of that...you could really make yourself crazy." Her ideas make perfect sense to me. We will definitely have a "sit-down" with her before we get into all kinds of tests to discuss whether or not it is necessary...or urgent, etc.

One thing that really relieved me about our visit...I told her about the problem with our insurance company...they determined that Lydia's biopsy could only be paid at a low level because the surgeon at the surgery center was out of state. We are in the process of filing an appeal to prove that it was necessary for us to use the Atlanta surgeon. Dr Hollman said, without hesitation, that it was absolutely necessary that it be done there...in order for the tissues to be handled properly...she said there was no way that a surgeon here could do it. And I realized later...the tissues were being sent to Dr Shoffner's lab for the testing...it wouldn't have made sense anyway to come back to Baton Rouge for the biopsy..then to have the tissues sent back to Atlanta to the lab. Anyway, Dr Hollman wrote a letter for me to submit to the insurance company. I've also been in contact with Dr Superneau's and Dr Shoffner's offices too to have them also write notices for us....hopefully that will help us to have the appeal approved.