I bitched a lot about having to drive two hours to Winston-Salem, which is where the doctor we chose more or less randomly is located, and having to start all over again with somebody new (because as much as I dreaded the stim test, I also wanted to get the ball rolling). But holy shit, am I glad now!
First off, this new guy said that at this point, we should do nothing more than continue to monitor Ezra's growth carefully. Based on the fact that he is still trucking along in the 3rd percentile, and the fact that everyone on my side of the family is short, and the fact that my mother and I were both very late in reaching puberty, it's probable that he's just a late bloomer with the genes for being kinda short, and at some point, he'll catapult back into the 25th percentile and be as tall as my dad, who was 5'7".
(My god, that's fucking short! But it's fine, really, because my kid is all kinds of awesome. And if he were all that and six feet tall, he'd probably be an asshole.)
The doc also suggested we stop giving Ezra Synthroid for a couple of months and then re-check his thyroid levels, because he wasn't especially disturbed by the initial bloodwork and there had been no other symptoms.
The very same data that had made Doctor #1 say we were probably going to be looking at nightly growth hormone injections for the next ten years made Doctor #2 say let's wait and see (and also, by the way, the hellacious stimulation test she was recommending is no longer considered all that reliable!); the very same data that had made Doctor #1 say definitively that Ezra had an autoimmune thyroid disorder and would have to be taking a pill every morning for the rest of his life made Doctor #2 say maybe, maybe not.
Perhaps I'm inclined to believe this guy because he had better news. But I equate pessimism with realism and assume optimists* are idiots. So that's not it. I just had this gut sense that he is the more attuned, more experienced doctor.
Which is totally scary, right? We would have just continued ahead on that course prescribed by Doctor #1. She may end up having been right, but at least now we'll find out for sure.
Anyway, since the appointment was first thing Monday morning, Ezra and I drove there Sunday evening and stayed in a hotel, which had to have been the highlight of his entire year.
He ate dinner in the hotel restaurant and was oblivious to its disgustingness. He loved tearing up and down the halls, opening the door to our room, riding the elevator. He got to eat crackers in bed while watching cartoons way past his bedtime. He got to spend time alone with me. I don't think he stopped smiling.
Oh, except when he sampled a lemon at dinner.
*except Barack Obama
5 comments:
This post got me... I was teary by the end. What great news.
that's wonderful, really. and it's cliche to say it, but, sometimes things happen for a reason. and for the record, one the greatest loves of my life (there were three, and I'm married to one of them), was 5'7". Good-looking short men are sexy, IMHO.
My son is super tiny, too, and we went through a battery of tests just before he turned three. We held off until then (he fell of the normal range of the chart around 9 months of age)... I am glad in some ways that we ruled out two potentially serious conditions in his case (celiac disease and cystic fibrosis) but nothing beats your "gut" sense, ad all along I had the sense that he was truly healthy. Plus, he always kept to his own modest curve on that growth chart.
As you describe Ezra... bright-eyed, smart, full of energy, small... it seems clear that he is healthy. What good news that you get to stop the pill and see where that takes you.
... btw, I've been lurking around your site since NaBloPoMo...
The hottest lover I've ever had was about 5'7". And his height didn't affect size elsewhere. Just saying.
Great news! This supports my always get a second (or third) opinion belief. Plus you just never know. I was telling the gifted teacher at my girl's school last night that the N.C. DOE testers told us when she was three that she'd never be in a mainstream classroom. They tried to convince us that she had developmental delays. Luckily, we took her to a developmental pediatrician, who said, "Yeah, she can't speak clearly yet, but she will. And she had no other problems or delays." Yeah.
yay! The medical news is fantastic and the report from your alone time with your boy was great.
I also was a late bloomer - at the end of 9th grade I was 5'1'' and I was 5'6" when I graduated from H.S. My sister who is 6 years younger than me was told many many times when she was young how she was going to be taller than her big sister someday. My mom is 5'10" and my sis was tall in elementary school so OF COURSE she was going to be taller than her shrimp of an older sister - today is is about 1/4th of an inch shorter than me - much to her disdain.
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