Week 6/7 of Genotropin

The Holiday came and went. My son has a very large present under the tree still wrapped. He just couldn't care less about such things. That is awesome. The Genotropin shots continue into week 7. The boy has grown, there is no question about it. He has lost some of the baby look in his facial features. This isn't just wishful thinking. We traveled to family over the Christmas Holiday. They don't see him on a daily basis and they say he has grown so much. The trepidation I had about giving shots every day forever has eased with the signs of progress. I'm not looking forward to a lifetime of shots, but if the shots do what they seem to do it will be worth it for us and our son. We have blood work and a Dr. appointment coming next month. It will be two calendar months of shots on my wife's birthday. We will measure him again. We will continue to use the purely scientific method of standing the boy up against his door. I'm just amazed at the changes that have occurred in the past 7 weeks. I guess it could be a coincidence. We are on high alert for growth so we see every little bit. That is all true, but the boy went over a year without growing at all. Then he blasts up close to an inch in the first month of shots. The Genotropin seems to work. I am not paid to talk about the drug. I, simply, want to track the progress of my son on the medication. We get the medication about once a month in the mail. It comes in a big box. We live where it gets very, very hot in the summer so I hope we are home when it comes. That is to worry about later. Now we are enjoying the growth of our son. He didn't get Halloween for Christmas, but guess what? He was happy anyway. The boy is always happy, and it is contagious! Happy New Year! Better hang my close on this line!

5 weeks in.

I mentioned in my last post that we measured the boy and he had grown in the 4 weeks we had been giving the shots. It isn't scientific but the progress is there, in Sharpie, on his bedroom door. Tonight my wife and daughter are out making holiday cookies so I had to go the shot alone with the boy. It was smooth. He fake cries when he sees the shot, but that is to be expected. He didn't even feel it. I wonder if I've improved my shot giving technique or if the boy simply has a high threshold for pain. I lean toward the latter. Having been born with pulmonary hypertension and having to be on a vent for so long when he was born may make the boy unbreakable. He is one tough little hombre. It is something when you can learn from your kids. It is really something when a small boy can teach you what is what. The boy takes his shot and is back to his normal happy self within seconds. He is the happiest child I've ever been around. There is something to be said about being happy. I know he isn't unbreakable but his spirit is. My heart isn't unbreakable, it cracks every time the boy says I'm not his friend, but it can take strength from my sons spirit. I'm not really a Grinch or Scrooge but I don't really like the Holidays. They just seem so overblown and wasted. I ask my son what he wants for Christmas and his answer has been...... HALLOWEEN! He is blissfully happy all the time. No commercial product can produce the joy I see on that boys' face when he is jumping on his bed. That is the spirit of the Holidays. That is the good will we are searching for. That is my son.

Interesting development

My wife was determined to measure the boy on the 12th of every month. We started the injections on 11/12/11 so a calendar month seemed as good a way as any to gauge progress. On November 12 we measured the boy and marked the door to his bedroom with a sharpie. Yesterday we measured him again. The results were very interesting. I'll admit that having a boy stand with his back to the door isn't scientific, I get it. The measurement yesterday was almost an inch taller than the November 12 measurement. If you factor in the significant error factor you still get the idea that the boy grew in the past 4 weeks. My wife was positive that he had grown. I saw the results myself. It is exciting in that it gives me incentive to fight his crying when shot time comes. I know he may have grown without the Genotropin, but I really doubt that. He hadn't grown in over a year. It is pretty cool and exciting news. I'm not going to think he will grow an inch a month, but that would be cool. I figure if he grew an inch a month he would still be close to a foot behind other 5 year old kids on his 5th birthday. He may be behind, but closer! He has not said I'm not his friend again. He does cry when he gets the shot. Guess what? I cry a little too.

Week 4

The fourth week of Genotropin shots comes to an end tonight. My son has been a trooper and his sense of humor is priceless. Our nightly routine is to take a bath, read a story in his room with his mommy and sister, and get a shot when the story is over. I'm usually doing the dishes and I go in after I'm finished. The other night the three of them were having a great time hanging out on his bed. I walked into his room and he said "Daddy you aren't my friend". The boy doesn't like getting shots. Who would? He doesn't cry he just finds things to say that communicate his feelings. I guess I'm not his friend if I have to give him a shot every night. The routine has become just that, routine. We are getting it down. This is where the unknown comes in. Have the shots had any effect? Are we doing this right? All the second guessing and doubts are difficult to deal with. We don't have a Dr. appointment until mid January. My wife has decided that we will measure the boy on the 12th of every month. The 12th of December is coming soon. I've mentioned before that a Mother's intuition is something I wouldn't dare question, so I will gladly measure the boy Monday. I'm not expecting much. You can't really, but I'm very willing to see that he has experienced a growth "spurt". Growing even a fraction would be a spurt. Well I had better get after my boy. I'm hoping he will let me be his friend again soon.

Third Week, third post

We have been been giving .7 doses of Genotropin to our boy for three weeks now. It has become as natural as giving shots to a 4 year boy can be. He sees me with the pen and says "no, not tonight". The boy has a way of conveying sadness and pain that is hardwired to my heart. He hasn't shown any side effects. He does fall asleep holding his head. Headaches are a side effect that we were warned about. He hasn't vocalized that he has a headache, but does a 4 year old really know how to vocalize that? The medication and the giving of shots is so strange for me. I'm not "afraid" of needles. I am very uncomfortable around them. The Pfizer pen is nice enough. I just wish there was a different way of providing the medication. A tasty lollipop comes to mind! My wife says it seems that the boy is growing. I learned long ago to not argue with a woman's intuition. That goes double for a mother and her child. I hope he has grown. I will trust that my wife's innate ability is correct and the medication is working, and will continue to work. I will hang my close on this line. Love ya, Mom.

Second week, second post

It has been two weeks since we started our boy on Genotropin. I still don't like the actual giving of the shots. I doubt that ever really gets better. We rotate the butt, thigh and stomach. I usually give the shot and my wife holds him. We have found that the stomach seems to be the best. I would have thought that it would be the worst. I guess that shows what I know. If I knew anything about what to expect I wouldn't be writing it all down. We have given two weeks of shots and the boy isn't a giant. I don't expect to see instant results. Hey I'd take them, but it won't happen. We had a 4 year old boy over as part of our Thanksgiving celebration. An 18 month old also came. Our 4 year old boy was much closer in size to the year and a half year old. It was a great example of why we are giving him the shots. I'm a rudderless ship, though. I really don't know what to expect and I'm nervous. I hope the shots are not something that we/he will have to do for the rest of days. That is intimidating to think about. We haven't seen any real side effects. The boy has had diarrhea for the past week. I attribute that to a flu like bug from his preschool. He hasn't had any other reactions. That is good, I think. I don't feel sad when I see my boy. I did feel "sorry" for him on Thanksgiving. He was so much smaller than the kid his age. He was so much smaller. Not just in stature but his development is way behind too. Our boy still looks like a baby. It is a tough time. Feeling sorry for my boy isn't what I want. He is well adjusted, though. He is spoiled, and you know what he always will be. I can't apologize for that. I just was surprised by how I felt when I saw him interacting with a kid his age. Well, not much to report for week 2. I will hang my close on this line. Hey Mom, (Love ya).

First post of, hopefully, a successful ride.

My son is 4 years old. He is the size (height) of a 2 and a half year old. He is an awesome boy and I love him with my entire being. We were worried about his growth and took him to see the Dr. I'm 6'4'' and about 200 pounds. My wife is normal size. I say 5'6'' she says 5'7''. We knew things with our boy were different from the start. He was born with pulmonary hypertension and he spent the first two weeks of his life in ICU. He had to be transported from our home to LA. During the transport he coded twice. His tube kept clogging with mucous. They had to pull the tube on the elevators up to the ICU. When the doors opened there just happened to be an ENT Dr. on the floor. They were able to reintubate him. The staff was phenomenal at LA Children's hospital and our boy came home one month to the day he was born. We had to see a variety of Dr's because of his rough start. The trips to the Dr. became fewer and the last Dr. we cleared was the neurologist. He said that my boys brain did have damage but it didn't seem like it would cause cerebral palsy or anything like that. That was about 18 months after his birth. The boy seemed to be growing just fine up to that point. He has an older sister that is on the opposite end of the growth spectrum. She is 6 and,literally, she is off the height chart. His slow growth didn't register with my wife and I because we just figured he would catch up. Well he just wasn't catching up. His friends in his daycare are his same age and they look like his older brothers. We took him to get the blood work and found out that his body had very low levels of thyroid hormones. So the boy was given thyroid medication to take. He took that for 3 months. We went back to the Dr. and the thyroid level had improved. He still takes the pills but the levels have come up. At the 3 month follow up the Dr. said that our boy had zero 0! growth hormone. That was also when we were told he was the average size of a 2 and a half year old. HGH was prescribed. I joked about very famous home run hitters when I heard we were going to be giving shots of HGH. The HGH is Genotropin. It came in two huge boxes. The boxes contained a bunch of paperwork, DVD, needles, alcohol wipes, and the Pen. I was intimidated by the whole prospect of giving shots to my boy every day. I just didn't think I could do it. Time passed and a Pfizer nurse came out to show us how to give the injections. She walked us through the process. I gave the first injection a week ago. I gave his latest injection about 20 minutes ago. I'm not writing this to say "well that was a tough week, but he seems to have caught up", nope I'm afraid this will be a long ride. I just hope it will be a long successful ride. The Dr. said that our boy would probably be about 5'1'' by age 18. That would have been without the Genotropin. My wife was really struck by that. Neither of us thought about it, we were just glad he was with us and healthy. That being said we want him to have a full life. Our families don't have any genetic history of dwarfism so we figured that our boys brain damage may be showing up this way. The shots have been started and I will be sure to track the progress on this blog. The boy deserves the best we can give him. Roughly two weeks after he came home my Mom went in for surgery. She never left the hospital and she died before she could meet her grandson. My Mom was frantic and she waited for all the updates I'd give her. My Mom was also very spiritual. She prayed often and she was devout in her Catholic faith. I'm positive that she somehow made a deal to go if our boy was allowed to stay. Losing my Mom the way I did at the time I did was painful. I know how much she loved the boy she never had a chance to meet. That is why I want to track his progress. I hope he does catch up and the shots can be stopped. I don't know what to expect. The only thing I know is that with this boy you can expect things, just be prepared to have your expectations exceeded. One week into Genotropin. Here's to you Mom! I'm going to hang my close on this line! (Love Ya)