So yesterday was our yearly check-ups for the younger boys, J & N. I purposely had the appointments back-to-back so I could get it over with. :-)
N is now on the growth chart! LOL Last year he wasn’t even on it. Yea! He is having a urine re-test to be cautious but otherwise his checkup was great.
On to J…so on top of his ADHD, Kindney-reflex, Asthma, IgA Deficiency, Autoimmune disease susceptible, Washed blood only transfusions, Aspergers, Raw Carrot Allergy, Gluten-free self he now has Scoliosis!! Seriously. Can you believe it?!?! I am so P.O.ed that I don’t know what to think, do, or say!! Seriously! This child already has so much to deal with and now this. I completely thought to myself “Are you joking??!! Couldn’t it be one of the other boys? Why him?” I know that is mean to wish it onto another one of my children but he has sooooo much to deal with already!! How is this fair to him? I am soooo MAD!! This was/is me:
So last night I read up on yet another medical issue for my poor middle son… Scoliosis. The experts don’t know why it happens. There are 2 different kinds- C or S curve.
J has an S curve.
There is about a 20% chance that it won’t get worse. If it does get worse (typically happens as a child goes through puberty) then he can wear a brace that will prevent his spine from continuing to curve. Once he is finished growing, if his spine is curved to a certain degree (from what I have been told it is like using a protractor for measuring math angles), then he will have surgery to fuse his spine. If untreated it could cause organ issues…like crushing them. If you “google” scoliosis you will see some pictures that are not that nice to look at.
In the end I am sure I will have to look forward to many years in a brace and then another surgery! On top of everything we already are dealing with!! I am sorry to be a pessimist here but they told me that his kidney reflex had a 90% (or some such high percentage) to naturally reverse itself by the time he was 5…he had surgery when he was 6 1/2 yrs old. So you can see the reason for my bitterness and lack of hope here. In this moment I just cannot look at this as the “glass is half full”. This is just too much on top of everything else.
Even though I am disheartened by the diagnosis I have decided to be pro-active. From the articles I read it seems that people who do certain stretches, see a chiropractor, and/or do karate (I guess because they do a lot of stretching?) tend to not curve as bad. So we visited a chiropractor today- someone we have known for years. He said he has dealt with many children who have scoliosis. Most of the kids he has worked on have not had to have surgery. The stretches/chiropractic visits seem to help. J will see him once a week for the next month and then once a month until he hits puberty. We are also going to start doing back stretches every day. As for the karate- if we had the money I would really consider it but as it is we just can’t afford it. The main issue at the moment is getting him to not do flips, somersaults, bridges, etc. Evidently these are no-nos for people with scoliosis…unfortunately he is determined to work on his flip throw-in for soccer. (See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqIJSzOf7bM)
I am convinced that somehow all his issues are connected, even though supposedly scoliosis is not an autoimmune disease (at least as far as they know). How could one little boy have all these issues and they not be connected??
