Pediatric Specialist # 6

Mason and I visited Dr. Sharma's office today - the infectious disease specialist - to try to get to the bottom of his mysterious come-n-go fevers. The pediatrician and cardiologist ruled out the conditions they could test for, so Dr. Sharma was the next step in the journey. He really thinks the root cause is a chronic sinus infection that is going to take more than just a 10 day round of Augmentin to clear. He ordered more blood tests (Mason wasn't thrilled about that, but didn't try to run out the door like last time) and a CT scan of his sinuses. We got the blood work over with today and are waiting for the CT people to call for an appointment. We'll meet with Dr. Sharma again next Thursday, and he fully expects to turn us over to an ear, nose, throat doctor. If I'm counting correctly, that will be the 6th kind of pediatric specialist Mason has seen - but I may be forgetting one or two. There was the baby hernia surgeon when he was 5 months, the eye specialist when he was 18 months and we thought he was cross-eyed (turns out he developed the eye-crossing-for-humor skill early), the cardiologist and pulmonologist we worked with when he was in the PICU, and Dr. Sharma (who also saw him at the hospital, but doesn't remember). Thank goodness we have good health insurance and specialist visits are only $40! The pulmonologist sent us a bill before he had our insurance information, and it was $800 for about an hour, maybe 2, on Mason's case. I SOO should have been a doctor (except that I hate hospitals, blood, biology, and pretty much everything else medical).