Alexander is being transferred from Duke to Children’s National Medical Centre in Washington, D.C. after having a consultation from Dr Derek Bruce. The signs were pointing to surgery and of course, any time you want to operate on our kids (or anyone we care about), if time allows, we’re going for that second opinion!
We had contacted one of the doctors that works with Julia to see if she had any ideas on getting that second opinion from a neurosurgeon. After she had worked the phones for three days, we were put in contact with Dr Bruce.
He personally called her back (a highly regarded neurosurgeon, possibly the best in the world!) which in and of itself is regarded as unusual. But then even better, he spent thirty minutes with her discussing the case and after she was done, it was as if a load had been lifted from her shoulders and she could see a concrete plan to try to solve Alexander’s problem with the seizures. A bit of Google action revealed that Dr Bruce’s CV is as impressive as his bedside manner and we had no problems feeling comfortable with working a transfer to Children’s in Washington, DC.
Dr George at Duke eventually came round and confirmed the diagnosis of focal cortical dysplasia and indicated that he could perform the surgery in the coming week. But at that point, the decision was taken to go ahead and go see Dr Bruce. I’m sure that Dr George would do a good job but when you have a chance at getting the pediatric neurosurgical equivalent of Wayne Gretzky performing the operation, that’s really a no-brainer.
It’s also a no-brainer when the past couple of weeks have basically been a case of playing with his medications and doing more MRIs for the most part. So bye-bye Duke, hello Washington!
So today, Alexander and Mommy got to ride a Super King Air 200 from Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU) to Dulles International (IAD) and were then transported by ambulance directly to Children’s in (technically) northwest DC (DC is laid out in quadrants centered on the Capitol building…Children’s is directly north of the Capitol and just barely west of North Capital Avenue).
Med Center Air
Grammy, Nicholas, and Daddy got the less impressive ground route from Zebulon to Washington, DC…including remembering just how much Beltway traffic stinks normally but particularly on a Friday night with less-than-stellar weather conditions. We had passed through storms in Richmond and the expectation was for a snow storm in Washington (which fortunately never came to pass!). It took about four and a half hours to get to the Washington area (with a stop north of Richmond for dinner and fuel) and then another 90 minutes to get round the western part of the Beltway to get to Children’s using Georgia Avenue. Of course, we might have saved some time if the streets were better lit and signed but we got a good tour of Howard University, nonetheless. We even passed Walter Reed Army Hospital once. But we eventually found our way round to Children’s National Medical Centre.
We’re staying at the Ronald McDonald House about two miles to the northeast of the hospital and it looks to be a wonderful place. It’s certainly a lot more affordable than the hotels round here. And the parking is cheaper, too.