Health Update

On Wednesday we went to Bennett's one year well-child exam and then he had a bunch of x-rays taken at the hospital including a bone-age scan. Bennett hasn't been feeling very good, and it just so happened that he had a fever at his appointment which meant no vaccinations. It ended up that he has a bad ear infection in his left ear. I was actually relieved that he didn't have to get vaccines that day because I knew that he would be going through a lot later that morning. He also needed to get pricked to check his iron, nutrition, and thyroid again.

Bennett's weight was 16lbs. 13oz (less than 3rd percentile)
His height was 28 3/4 inches (10th percentile)
Head circumference was 44.4 cm (between the 5th and 10th percentile)

Despite our appointment being at exactly when Bennett usually takes his first nap and being sick on top of it, he was such a trooper. He was pretty happy during the entire appointment. We then headed into the hospital to radiology where he had a skeletal survey and bone-age scan done. The skeletal survey was a repeat from when he was first born. It is basically x-rays of Bennett's entire body. They are going to send the pictures off to the doctor that specializes in dwarfism in Wisconsin again (Dr. Pauli) to see if he notices anything new. The bone-age scan is just an x-ray of his hand and foot. From this picture they can tell the actual age of his bones- if they are younger than his actual age- that can mean that he may be blooming late, if they are the same age as he is- we are more likely looking at a skeletal dysplasia.


After we got home from the hospital I received a call from the U of I. Great news! Bennett's chromosome test came back normal. So, she helped me understand what this means. She explained it as- "Think of our chromosomes as an entire set of encyclopedias. The chromosome test that we did would tell us if an entire book was missing, probably even if a chapter in a book was missing. It wouldn't be able to tell us anything about if a sentence or letter was missing though." She said the the letters in the books are our genes. If they want to know something specific about the genes, they have to tell a test exactly what to look for. Basically, the chromosome test ruled out a few more types of disorders, but didn't lead them to a diagnosis.

I also asked her about typical arm span length because on our report the average was not given. Bennett arm span is 61cm whereas the average arm span at 1 year is between 70 and 75. So we can conclude that his span to height ratio is a little smaller than is should be. We knew this!

The last thing that her and I talked about was that Bennett will probably need to have the x-rays done again at 2 and maybe even 3 years old, BUT the later they can come to a diagnosis, the more milder the form of skeletal dysplasia. So I am hoping they continue NOT to find anything! She reiterated that they feel that he most likely has a form of dwarfism, but are hoping that it is a mild form. We shall see and we'll love him either way!

*Update* - Before a got a chance to post this, I heard back on Bennett's blood tests. His iron is still a little low so we have to continue to give him a supplement plus around 1 pediasure a day for calories and iron. His thyroid and basic scan (that shows nutrition) came back normal again. Go Bennett!