I often worry Elle will be my "scarred" child. She is the first born to a momma who didn't get an overly abundance of motherly intuition when baby entered the world. As a result, I fear I am always over.reacting or under.reacting, and seldom appropriately.reacting.
When Elle was a baby she didn't keep much food down. She threw up an awful lot. Now that I've had another baby that ate well, I have gleaned a better idea of how bad her throwing up was. When she was born she was a healthy size: 50% in weight and 75% in height.
Well, month by month as we went for our check-ups this gradually fell until at 18 months we were at the bottom of the charts. At 2 years, she grew nada and put on no weight. Elle was then at 0% for both. Awesome right?!
Last year, Elle was being made fun of at her little MDO class for being so small... "like a baby." A little girl wouldn't play with her, and while I'm sure the little girl didn't intend to hurt my Elle, it did. For months all I heard was how Elle wanted this girl to play with her, the words that she said, etc.
Disclaimer: my child is no saint. I do not judge and realize kids are just kids. They are learning what is okay and not okay to say. They have remarkable candor and are just now learning that while sticks and stones may break bones, words do indeed hurt. Elle has said her fair share of nasty and certainly not above saying unkind things. We have however used this situation as a grounds for trying to teach her the power of words as well as how it can hurt to not have friends. We have encouraged her to always seek out those sitting by themselves and try to be a sweet friend to them.
The poor child, which I now deem scarred for other reasons that my stellar motherliness has been poked and prodded more than most people have been in decades. Elle has a phobia like you wouldn't believe of needles. She has been at times quite literally like a wild animal when she sees a needle. At Children's Hospital I asked how bad her anxiety was on a scale of 1-10. I figure they see children all day every day... surely Elle is not the worst right? HA! They said she was a 10 and it was in her charts to have all further procedures done downtown where they are better equipped to handle her and put her always under general anesthesia.
You can pray she outgrows this.
She started have blood work drawn at 18 months, and since then vials upon vials have been taken, we've had bone scans, stem tests, and an MRI. Results: idiopathic growth hormone deficiency. What does this mean? Elle's pituitary doesn't work all that well and produces (hurray that it produces anything) "barely traceable" amounts of growth hormone. Treatment: Elle takes growth hormone shots every night, 6 nights a week, until she goes through puberty.
This was a 4 hour test Elle had to do where they manipulated her pituitary to see how much growth hormone it was capable of producing.
This was also the day after we lost our Lucy. This was a hard day.
After a MRI to make sure there was no tumor on her pituitary.
I have a file over an inch thick that includes documentation of all phone conversations I've had over the years with doctors, insurance, special pharmacies, etc.
Well, we started treatments on Christmas night last year (2013) and Elle is now growing at twice the average growth rate for a child her age!!! She very regularly will put her hands and feet in our faces and say with great enthusiasm "look how much I growed!"
Just last week Elle finally joined the 30 pound club!!! This was taken in September 2014. She is just a month shy of being 5.
We are so proud of her! Due to Elle's aforementioned phobia of needles, we give administer her shots while she is asleep. She sometimes wakes up, sometimes yells, sometimes thrashes about. We've had plenty a bent needles and bruises. For the most part though, she sleeps right through the shot, wakes up and we talk about her bravery.
I am so thankful for modern medicine and our growing little girl who is about to be 5!!!
Here is my girl in her first big girl dress and big girl shoes!!!
Here is my girl in her first big girl dress and big girl shoes!!!
