Tuesday 14 January 2014

Further baseline check ups

On the Thursday we had our initial appointment at the Nemour's Childrens Hospital, just a routine Oncology clinic check - blood pressure, height, weight, the usual. There was a lovely play room here which the boys enjoyed and the views from the building were pretty awesome.


On Friday we were back at Nemours for Joel to have a baseline hearing examination, and then on the Monday he had his eye exam and then his neurocognitive assessment.

Joel had to have eye drops to dilate his pupils. Unfortunately as he's had this done before, he knew what to expect, and he screamed, and kicked, and made a runner for the door. He was distraught. He wouldn't calm down. He was really upset. In the end, I had to pin him down on the table, holding his arms down, whilst the nurse dropped the liquid into his eyes. He was not impressed. He gained a $1 note and a chocolate bar for his pain. As he's not usually allowed chocolate, it works wonders as a treat.

Turned out though that you shouldn't have your pupils dilated before a nerocognition test. His vision was blurry and he couldn't complete all of the test so we need to return to complete it next week!

The neurocognition test was incredibly boring for Joel. I'm amazed if it shows anything in a 5 year old. I wasn't too impressed with some of his answers! When asked to name as quickly as possible anything beginning with the letter 's', he only managed about 3 things, and then when asked to name as many animals as he could, I think his only answers were 'cat, dog, iguana, elephant and a crocodile', oh and finally he mentioned a 'cow and a pig'. My God! What does that show? What does it mean if your son names an iguana before 'normal' domesticated animals? Would you not expect every farm animal to be mentioned, and then perhaps go onto common zoo animals? Maybe he's already a bit low on his IQ, or maybe he's just a five year old boy who doesn't want to sit there answering, in his opinion, dumb questions?!

1 comment:

  1. Good to read you made it safely over considering how the weather was when you were travelling. Iguana's are way cooler than sheep.....so I will have to side with Joel on that one. It's such a shame about the eye drops, little lamb (one for you to remember Joel).
    Fingers crossed you have no more hiccups.

    Take care

    Fiona (LM/cleaner)

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