Soooo, Cooper does not have any iron deficiency. Fabulous. Great. Wonderful. However, his lead test came back REALLY HIGH. What? How? What? The doctor called today, and when the doctor calls on a Saturday you know something is up. This is the actual pediatrician, not the nurse practitioner we saw in the office. He says yes, Cooper's lead test was high. It was 22. So he wanted us to go to the hospital and have the lab draw blood so they could do it again. The first test might have had a false result. But on the chance it was right, what could be the source?
Water, paint and soil. Those are usually the sources of lead in the environment. Cooper is not chewing on the window sills, but even if he was, all of them are natural wood with stain, not painted. We have had the kitchen counters done in the last year, but again, they were not taking out or redoing old painted counters or cupboards, the dust was mostly from partical board. If it was our water, theoretically his lead test a year ago should have shown elevated levels. We were using our water to make his formula after all. He has been out in the yard, but he hasn't been eating the dirt. He isn't even rolling around in the grass.
I went through the list of recalled toys where they have found excessive lead levels in the paint. We don't have any of them. Never did have any of them. That doesn't mean that all of the toys have been found, so it is possible he might have some. We won't know until Monday what the result of the second test is.
Cooper was most excellent during the lab visit. He sat in my lap and they had one person hold his arm while the other one took the blood. He was unhappy about them sticking a needle in his arm, but once the initial stick was over, he handled it well.
I hope the first test was wrong, because finding the source of the lead will be a pain AND the long term effects of lead poisoning are BAD. He certainly isn't showing any signs of excessive poisoning at this time, which is good. So for now all we can do is wait. And not freak out. Sigh.
1 comment:
Yikes! Scary stuff. I hope it turns out OK and that it was just a false positive test.
Post a Comment