Who are we seeing today? Mackinley's book of good thanks.

I think that making it to 2 years old was a HUGE milestone for Mackinley and our whole family and we should thank everyone who has helped us along the way.

First of all we need to thank all of our family out there, they have embraced Mac since the minute he was born and have helped us through the toughest of days. Our parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, nieces and nephews are amazing and we wouldn't be here without their love and support.

On the most tear stained days and nights I know I can always turn to Allie. She is all the way on the other side of the country and we have never met in person - although last night I did have a dream we went jeans shopping together - but she understands everything we are going through. When I say I feel so alone the truth is I do, but I know there is at least 1 person who makes this solo trip into a group effort. I feel so lucky to have met her through babycenter.com and I hope that one day our little miracle kids can meet. Thanks for keeping me grounded and on my toes.

Not many people would sit down and write a blog post to thank their medical professionals...but not many people have had to rely on them as much as we have. Mackinley has his pediatrician, endocrinologist, urologist, neurologist, physical therapist, speech therapist and post pardum nurse to thank for being here today.

Pediatrics: Dr. Gary Spector
THE MOST AMAZING PEDIATRICIAN in the world. He has made us laugh and cry and always lets us know we are doing a great job. It was by chance that we found him and when my labor nurse told me he wasn't taking new patients I about forced her at gun point to enter his name in the computer. Good thing I did. We had met with him a mere week before Mackinley came and he was the only doctor we would consider trusting with our baby. He hasn't failed us yet.

Endocrinology: Dr. Gad Kletter
With his phone always buzzing and EXTREME knowledge of everything medicine sometimes it is hard to know if he is coming or going but he is such a wealth of knowledge we feel lucky to have met him. If we hadn't met Dr. Kletter we may not know that McDonald's uses soy to enhance it's flavors and with Mac's medications soy will hinder the effectiveness so he should never eat McDonald's for breakfast. We may also never have known that the liquid form of hydrocortisone the hospital pharmacy sent home with us was unstable and should not by used. Why? There is a tree in Iraq that is used in the mix to stablize the medicine, since the war began it is in short supply and no longer used...hence it not being safe to use. Who knows this stuff???

Urology: Dr. Beth Anderson
Luckily we only had to see Dr. Anderson for a few months for 3 rounds of testosterone shots and surgery. She is a wonderful urologist, very to the point and has a great bedside manner, and if we had to see her again in the future we would feel safe in her hands. Mackinley's routine surgery took a few twists and turns and ran almost 3 hours instead of 45 minutes but when it was all said and done we were glad it was taken care of when he was young enough to not remember.

Neurology: Dr. Lauren Plawner
We are just getting into our medical journey with Dr. Plawner and we really enjoyed our first appointment with her. Mackinley will be having an MRI and full genetic work up done soon. He had an MRI when he was 5 days old and apparently newborns brains are still very "watery" then so most of the images are hard to see. We are hoping that this will help us put some more pieces of the puzzle together.

Physical therapy: Mali Olsen, PT, DPT
We really like our time with Mali. Mackinley saw her once a week for about 12 weeks and has been back for 3 re-evaluations...we wish we could still see her every week because we like her so much! She helped Mac learn how to crawl and eventually walk!

Speech therapy: Alison Lombardi, M.S., CCC-SLP
Mackinley has been seeing Alison for about 5 weeks now and has made mounds of progress. We are still way behind the other kids but we can't ignore the huge amount of progress we have made. Our insurance won't cover speech therapy so we were referred to a Birth to 3 program and ended up going with the Northwest Center. Alison visits our home once a week and all of our therapy is play based. Mac seems to enjoy showing her his magnets and trains.

Post pardum: Gina Rosengrant
Gina is the one person I give thanks to for saving Mackinley's life at not even one day old. She is passionate, quick thinking, smart beyond her years and most of all she really cares about Mac. We see Gina every few months and in between those times every time she bumps into Dr. Spector she gets a full update. We love that she is still in our lives and I can't imagine the outcome had she not been our nurse.