Braces!

Julia and Lisa got braces last week. It was painless getting them on, but now their little mouths are sore. Sore teeth and lips, and having a hard time eating.

Lisa's braces are on both top and bottom. She'll have them about a year and a half. Julia's are on the bottom only. She will need surgery to reposition her upper jaw, but this cannot be done until she stops growing. She has a class 3 underbite. We would have waited for the bottom braces, but Julia has an impacted lower molar. We will soon visit an dental surgeon who will make an opening for this tooth and attach a brace to it. The braces will gently, slowly, pull it up into position over the next year or year and a half.

Weilong is doing just fine! He is not having headaches. Well, maybe just a little sinus one occasionally. I can tell when he has one because his eyes look a bit swollen.

I think physical therapy is really helping Weilong's feet and legs. He is walking much more normally now. He is not crying with feet and leg pains either, thank God. The tendons are still tight in his right leg, but we are working on it daily. I still think I should get an honorary medical degree for all the things I've had to learn over the last year!

Weilong wet to the endocrinologist last week too. He has grown approximately two inches since surgery in October. A steady rate, but not fantastic. The doctor increased the gh dosage a little bit. Also, he changed us to a medication called genotropin. The one WL has been taking, nutropin stings when he gets a shot, kind of like a bee sting. That's why he has been crying. We must first finish the nutropin we just got because it is so very expensive, but in about 3 weeks he will start the new med. Hopefully it will not sting as bad.

Lisa went to the orthopedic doctor last week. They did something I think they called a scanogram to measure her leg length. One leg is 1.3 cm shorter than the other one. Also, they did a bone age scan and her bone age is 12yrs 6 months. Her chronological age is 13 yrs 8 months. She is scheduled for an mri on 3/18 to rule our tethered cord.

Weifu is doing great physically. He will need braces in a couple of years, but he is growing like a little weed. He is probably going to be our tallest child. He is very mischievous and loves to pick at one of the other children to get them upset. I think he uses this as a way to get attention. He is very smart and does well in school if we stay on him. He needs supervision to get his work done. If we are not sitting there with him, he will stare off into space instead of doing his homework. He loves school though, and loves his teachers. He will always do well if we can channel that energy he has into a positive direction.

Little Hannah is getting tubes in her ears on Tuesday. They say it is a safe procedure and will prevent her from getting all those ear infections. I'm still concerned though, you know how grandmothers are.

I'll try to post pictures of the girls' braces in the next day or two. I'm so busy now that I hardly have time to get my camera out. But surely things will slow down soon??? Please tell me they will.

Citizenship

Reaching Higher

It has been a rocky month for me. Weilong got an ear infection about a month ago and I took him to the doctor and he got an antibiotic. End of earache.

But about a week later he started getting dreadful headaches and vision problems and he even vomited a couple of times. This continued for a couple of weeks. Then he got a headache that would not go away, even with tylenol. He said his head just felt funny and his eyes hurt.

Of course I was frantic. I called the neurosurgeon and talked with the nurse. She tried to get his MRI moved up, but there were no openings sooner than our March appointment. She told me to watch for some danger signs and take him to the emergency room if I needed to.

Finally on the third day of an intense headache I took him to the pediatrician. He has a very bad sinus infection! They think the antibiotic didn't completely wipe out the previous ear infection. So, we're on a stronger one now and Weilong's headache has subsided. He still says things look funny sometimes, but maybe that's just the sinus pressure.

Will things always be this way? Will I always panic when he gets sick? I don't know, I wish I had more faith. But two or three weeks of headaches and vision difficulties are more than I can stand at the moment. I cannot wait until that next series of MRI's is over with. I want to SEE the results of surgery.

Weilong continues to grow. Nothing spectacular, but slow steady growth. We got him a stepladder so that he can use the microwave. He's so proud to be able to reach things in the kitchen with it.