background

Friday, March 23, 2012

I feel like this has happened before

Deja Vu. 

That's what I feel like is going on at our house right now.  O had her 7 year check up on Wednesday.  I was assuming it would go wonderfully.  She hasn't been sick much, her asthma is generally under control, she's thriving at school. 

The first thing O had done was measurements of height and weight.  Her height seemed a bit low to me, but I couldn't really remember what she was at her 6 year check up.  Her weight is always low, so that really wasn't a surprise. 

Still under my assumption of having a perfect appointment, the pediatrician walks in and says "well, we have a problem."  Really?  Already?  Because we haven't done much, yet.  Only taken measurements.  Oh.  I see.  "O has only grown .25" and gained 1.5lbs the last year."

Cue flash back...Now! We're back in the years 2005 and 2006.  Getting O weighed creates so much anxiety.  Has she gained enough?  Are we going to have to have more testing done?  Am I going to have to meet with the dietitian again who treats me like I'm abusing my child by not feeding her? The dietitian who says my breast milk isn't fatty enough.  Is my breast milk not fatty enough?  Is she allergic to dairy?  Please, please, please have a gain on that scale!

I thought we were passed this stuff.  After 1.5 years of trying to figure out why O is little, we (the pediatrician, O's GI, and E and I) came to the conclusion that she's just tiny.  Its just her.  She was hanging out on her little growth curve, albeit below the charts, but, she had a purty little curve going.  Unfortunately, this latest ordeal has her dropping off in her own curve in height and weight. 

So, we're back to more testing.  Some of the testing of the blood work O had done when she was 1.5 really wasn't super reliable. Things like Celiac may not show trustworthy results with just blood work until after the age of 5.  (They gave us the option to have a small portion of her small intestine biopsied, but we declined.)    She'll likely have a repeat of those kinds of tests. 

As for right now, we're keeping a food log.  Monitoring everything that goes into her tummy.  (Which is sort of funny, in a weird way, since I'm doing the same for myself for WW.  Although the intent with mine is to LOSE weight.)  She's bringing home apple cores and corners of sandwiches from school.  (Its kind of gross since its been hot.  It gets all smelly in her lunch box.)  We should hear from a dietitian in the next few days.  They'll come out and take a peak at O's food log and determine if she's eating enough calories (which, I think she probably is.)  Then, we'll go from there. 

This is real life deja vu.  I have done this before.  At least this time the dietitian can't blame me for breastfeeding O. 

2 comments:

Mommy Attorney said...

Oh man Tracy. How stressful. I will definitely pray for you guys. I hope they are able to get to the bottom of it.

Frances said...

:( I am sorry for you and O, I hope they at least figure out what is going on so you get a plan of action! Praying for you guys!