The Chest X-ray

September, 2008


The overlap in insurance left us with some decisions about whether to take Sarah to her cardiologist appointment set up through the "old" insurance because we were still covered and the appointment had already been approved to be paid for. The Kaiser Metabolic doctor advised that we get everything done through Kaiser so that they could get the test results. So I canceled our cardiologist appointment and waited for Kaiser to tell me when to go to their pediatric cardiologist.

I grew impatient and wondered if I had made the right decision in cancelling the appointment. Then I was called by the "old" insurance and informed that we were approved for the chest X-ray. We just need to go to the children's hospital in our county and they would already have the request permitting the test. Based on my regret for not following through with the other appointment, I decided to take Sarah to get the chest X-ray done. Jon came with us because he was on a vacation break from his year-round school. We were asked a few times why the X-ray had been requested and we did not know the answer other than it was to give us more information about her heart.

The nurse asked if we had ever seen a chest X-ray done on a small child before. We had not. She warned that it looks much worse than it really is and that the process cuts back on needing to do multiple X-rays because the child cannot move in the restraint system that is used. They strapped Sarah vertically into a clear tube like contraption. Her legs were straddling a bar and Jon had to stand holding her arms above her head. Sarah screamed. She did not like this at all. It didn't look comfortable at all!

When it was all done, I was frustrated with not knowing the need for this traumatic experience and what this would reveal to help discover if Sarah really has CPT II. I decided that I could not dwell on what we had put Sarah through. I had made the choice to go and it was done so there was nothing left to worry about.