Bad Mom

So for the past few months, Simon and I have been saying, "Doesn't Peanut tilt her head a lot?" We also ask "Do you think it's a sign of a dread disease?". I've noticed that her face isn't symmetrical. We asked the Dr about it, and he said if it didn't get better we'd send her to an opthamologist.
It didn't get much better, but I felt a little weird bringing it up at the last appt. The Dr didn't notice it, after all.
Now I googled "infant chronic head tilt" and it's pretty plain that she does have something, although it's not a dread disease. It's called torticollis. There are several causes. I'm not sure what hers is, but I'm damn sure I should have said something to her Dr, because I read that if it's not corrected by about 1 year of age, the facial asymmetry can be permanent.

She's only 8 months old, and I've already fucked up hard. Sometimes I think about having another kid and it just wears me out. Other times I think I shouldn't because I'm not a good enough mom.

I'm just going to have to do the best I can to get things fixed. I will be a bulldog on my daughter's behalf, and make sure she gets what she needs. This is not about me looking like a neurotic mom, it's about my daughter's neck.

I will forgive myself for not doing something sooner. It isn't a very bad case, and I honestly thought she'd grow out of it. I will be glad I looked it up eventually and got things rolling. I can even be glad that we were already doing some of the things that we should do, like making her look to the left. It could be worse.

On another medical front, Simon is going to get his nose fixed. He's got nasal polyps. Nasal polyps suck. It's like having a permanent cold; always stuffy, frequently headachey, usually unable to smell... Since I'm still smarting from being ignorant about Peanut's problem, I googled the sam hell out of nasal polypectomy. You bet I did. Read a lot of abstracts.
ASIDE:
They use a survey to measure symptoms of patients called the Sino-Nasal Outcome Test, or SNOT. You think I just made that up. I didn't. You can't make this stuff up.
ANYWAY:
I feel prepared, now that I know the usual procedures, major and minor complications, and circumstances under which they're most likely to happen. Want to know something funny? Simon can't have sex for 7 to 10 days afterwards. Not that we get off sticking things up each other's noses, but his blood pressure has to stay low so things don't bleed. He hasn't mentioned this yet, but when he finds out he won't be amused.

I'm so glad we have health insurance. Right now the $15 copay is starting to hurt because Simon, Peanut and I all have a mess of visits lined up. Can you imagine if we actually had to pay the entire bill? Actually, what would happen is we wouldn't go to the doctor at all, and wouldn't be getting any treatment whatsoever. It would be cheaper. This way is much better, even if it does cost more.

Wish us luck,
ephelba