Spring Break - Friday, March 13

I know it's been awhile since I've blogged.  Been such a busy week and last weekend we were gone out of town on a fun trip with my parents!  I've been wanting to get the pictures together and blog about lots of things, just haven't had the time.  Everyone will just have to be patient with the pics... but I'll catch you up on a few items this week and then I'm off!

Today starts Spring Break!!  YAY!!!  Our spring break this year is Mom going along with Rachel as a Chaperone on their High School Band Trip to Orlando, FL.  So.. yes... as I've written about in the past, it is in fact going to take place and today's the magic day... in about 45 min. to be exact!!  LOL   The fun begins....

Boys are hanging out and will have some fun of their own at the ranch, but the girls are out of here shortly!!  I'll post pictures/blogs along the way if I can!!

Few Updates:

Stephen's Dr. Appointment - the long awaited appointment with the Endocrinologist was on Weds.  I have to give them credit because once we got there, it went really quickly and the doctor spent probably 45 minutes with us.  That was a good thing.  We'll see how much that time costs when the bill arrives!!  :-)  Thank goodness for good health insurance!!

Basically, she feels he is still in the "normal" range since he is not off the chart yet (he's only about 3%, but not OFF the chart) in height.  He doesn't qualify as "short stature" by definition because he's still on the chart.  He doesn't qualify as having a definite growth hormone deficiency because he's still been growing, just very slowly.  

She believes this is all tied to his ADHD and the medications he's been taking since age 5.  If you look at his growth chart, he was doing quite well until that time.  The weight fell off first and the slowly, the height began to follow afterwards.  She put it very plainly.... ADHD medications keep you from wanting to eat, therefore, you don't eat what you should nutritionally and therefore, your body can't grow and be as healthy as it should be.  The weight will fall off first and then slowly, you'll see the height and potentially, other factors (overall general health) start to decline as well.  The other deal is that there is a linkage between ADHD medications and potentially, a lessening in the amount of Growth Hormones produced overall.  Not that it's not produced, but maybe a little less than it should be.  So.. basically... he has to eat... even when he's not hungry... and alot when he is hungry.   She told me to feed him at 10:00 at night if that's when he's hungry.  Otherwise, basically, he won't grow the way he should, get as tall as he should and potentially have health issues to come in life.

So... throw out the window of the kitchen is closed after dinner.  Not for him.  Hopefully, he'll take it to heart and eat more during the day when his body needs some fuel.

The good news is that she looked at his bone age scan and disagreed with the original assessment that they showed he was 12 years old.  She pulled out the books and we looked through them and he's more than likely somewhere between 9.5 years and 10 years old in the scans, some of his bones could even be classifed closer to 8, but generally she felt it should be around 10.  That's good because that means he should have a lot of time to still do some growing, albeit behind most of his peers but he should end up just fine.  Statistically, if he's where she thinks he is on the bone age scan, he should end up with a height between 5'5" - 5'7".   We can live with that.

Not much to do right now besides get him eating.... go back in 6 months!

Ok - well, I'm off!!  Wish me luck!!

Later!

MA