Finally, a well check.

Finally after multiple calls I got dr Roberts to accept Oliver as a patient. He has only been taking newborns for 6 years...

Just met with Dr. Roberts. It was kind of an unusual visit… I guess because he's only used to dealing with new patients as newborns. They didn't really ask for much of a patient history and we just kind of jumped in there. He was starting to give advice before it actually heard our story, which felt a little frustrating, but he did listen once I started talking. The office is kind of old school. No fancy digital scales (that I saw) or paperless charts or patient portals to be found here. He wrote on paper while he talked. He was quick to give advice about early introduction of allergens and trying to keep small amounts in diets to increased tolerance etc and all this new food allergy science suggesting TEDs can do more harm than good, but when I explained that even the smallest amount of a  trigger foods results in the kind of symptoms that Oliver has, he agreed that that's probably not the best approach for him.  He talked about how the immune system in the G.I. tract are all intertwined in this big black hole of mystery  where not enough research has been done to understand exactly what's going on with these babies. He said someday Penny and Oliver will be in the textbooks teaching doctors but for now we just try to trudge through and figure out the best way that we can. I felt like he kept trying to give me food trial advice, and I was trying to gently explain to him that I've got it covered for food trials between me and the allergist and the G.I. , but what I don't feel confident in is managing the rest of his health care. At that point, we discussed vaccinations and how they would come in to play with Oliver. After hearing all of Oliver's information, he suggested that we hold off on anything that would affect his immune system in a negative way until he's got at least 20 to 25 foods. So he said when he's two years old let's revisit how many safe foods he has and talk about possibly starting vaccinations one of the time. For now, to avoid any kind of medications or immunizations that could throw his system out of whack or mask symptoms.  He said if we feed him offending food, we can just stop feeding him the food, but if we put an immunization in him and it's not good for his body, there's nothing we can do to take that back out. He said he felt like Oliver was the perfect picture of health, you wouldn't know anything was going on by just looking at his stats or by looking at him, and he's low risk because he's at home with me and he's breast-feeding, so we should be good. No flu shot for him, but he said he supported the idea of the rest of us getting it. He said practice good hand washing with Penny, don't leave Oliver with other people, no one else feeds him... the obvious stuff. See us back in 7 months unless we need him. Oh and he agrees it's worth trying peanuts and fish to see how he does with it. He also wants us to go low and slow with food amounts but I'm going to stick with what working for now. 

So... good and also kind of disappointing with the 1980s office technology.  He said a lot of positive things and talked for a good 45 minutes but sometimes I didn't feel like he was asking for the proper info before suggesting stuff, mostly in the beginning, I guess.