Where Did October Go?

I must be getting old because life keeps going faster and faster, and I can't keep up. We've had so many fun things happening, so here's a quick catchup on a few of them.

My awesome nephew Braiden got married in October at the Payson temple. It is so beautiful. 

Look at these two. They are gorgeous.

We had dress like a pirate day at school.

We got the big boys' school pictures back.

We taught Rander about family selfies. He loved it.

We met with a new endocrinologist to get a second opinion about Tukk's slow growth. He's still following the regular growth curve but not catching up, and kids are starting to tease him about how small he is. They tell him he can't really be 7 because he's too small, and they try to pick him up at recess and carry him around. This makes him furious ("I'm not a baby, mom. Why do they keep trying to pick me up?"). It makes me gnash my teeth a little bit, and because it's starting to bother him we decided to try a new doc and just see what he thinks.

This, of course, meant a new round of growth junk: a lengthy appointment to discuss Tukk's extensive medical history, followed by a hand X-ray to check his bone age and growth plates, and a massive blood draw. I think they took 6 vials of blood from him this time and he didn't even flinch. The dude is tough. Plus he thought it was awesome to see his skeleton in the hand X-ray.

All of this poking and prodding, of course, meant he deserved a reward. A giant reward.

We got the results back a couple of weeks ago and this new doc pretty much said the same thing as his old one: Tukk's body is producing adequate amounts of growth hormone and testosterone, thyroid function is great, no celiac disease... things are running fine from a hormone perspective, Tukk is just tiny and, in the doc's words, "grossly underweight." I honestly felt like responding "No duh" when he was talking about Tukk's weight. But at least I didn't want to throat punch him like I did when the dietician diagnosed Tukker as "malnourished." I had a flipping come apart over that one, and someone nearly got cut. I'm making progress, people.

I don't think there's anything wrong with what Tukk's body is producing - I think his metabolism is still just supercharged, so his body doesn't get enough nutrition to catch up growth-wise because his metabolism burns too much off before his body can really use it. We were told by one of Tukk's many docs that babies who are critically ill for extended periods of time have "damaged" metabolisms. I guess their bodies just start burning everything furiously so they can send nutrition out to all the sicky parts to try to heal them, and when their body is in this mode for too long it doesn't always know how to switch back.

So basically Tukker has a metabolism that any 30-something mother would kill for. I wish we could swap. Oh, how I wish we could swap.

So now the next option is to do a 5-hour sleep study on the Tukk. Your body produces growth hormone all the time, but it's supposed to kick out a big burst of it while you're asleep, so even though Tukk has adequate levels when he's tested while awake, he may not be getting that big burst while he sleeps. If not he may qualify for GH shots. Which may help him grow. Or may not. That's a lot of "mays." And it won't have any effect on his weight.

His old doc wanted to do this test 2 years ago but it was right after another round of blood draws for growth hormone and X-rays for growth plates and an X-ray to check his hip and a separate blood draw to check his kidney function, so Tukk was done. He started crying when I told him he had to do the kidney blood draw and asked, "Why do I always have to do this?" It broke my heart, so I told his old endocrinologist we weren't doing the sleep study. Tukk needed a break.

I'm not sure if we'll do it now. The new doc said we'd wait til March to even consider it, so we have some time to think it over. All the "mays" make me leery, and we've been doing this crap since Tukk came home from the hospital, and he's never ever qualified for GH, so I'm starting to feel like it's pointless. I wouldn't even have taken him in for a second opinion if he hadn't started noticing how small he is. So I think we'll leave it up to him - if he wants to give it a try, we'll do it. If not, we'll just keep reminding him that dynamite comes in small packages. And I'll go kick the crap out of anyone who teases him, so all the kids will know he has a crazy mom and will leave him alone. And I'll get to spend some time in prison for beating up a first grader, but they cook for you and (I'm pretty sure) wash your orange jumpsuit for you, so it's basically a win-win.

But enough about medical junk. Let's talk about the things that really matter in life, like a man's first visit to Krispy Kreme:

It's an epic event.

And also a man's first wrestling singlet. Look at those muscles. He's a lean, mean, wrestling machine. 

And I just love this picture my niece McKenzie sent me. That is all.