Trigger finger, growth deficiencies, and glasses

In September, Kamdyn had a trifecta of procedures done.  With a lot of phone calls and coordinating, Kamdyn's ENT, orthopedic doctor, and an eye doctor from the hospital agreed to do their part at one time.  I'm so glad that it all worked out, since Kadmyn had a perforated ear drum that needed to be examined, tubes that were sitting in the ear canal that needed to be removed, an eye exam that needed to be done while she was sleeping since she won't cooperate in the office, and a trigger finder release in both thumbs.  Her perforated ear drum had healed (yay!), and the trigger finder release went over without a hitch.



We knew that Kamdyn needed the trigger finger release, because her thumbs would frequently get locked and stuck in a bent position.  Basically, any time she was doing an activity that required a lot of help from her thumbs, they would lock up.  It would look like her thumbs were dislocated when it would happen.

To allow her thumbs to heal after the surgery, Kamdyn had to wear full arm casts on both arms for 2 weeks.  And when I say full arm casts, it's exactly what you would imagine.  From the end of her thumbs to the shoulder was in a cast.  Her arms were immobilized in a partially bent position.  She could not eat or drink on her own.  She did figure out ways to do many things, but it was a long 2 weeks.



Kamdyn picked the colors of her casts.  When the surgeon opened the packages and saw that there were 2 colors, there was apparently some debate as to how they were supposed to use both colors.  They said they almost sent someone out to ask.  I think they did pretty well making the decision on their own.



Since the casts have been off, her thumbs have not locked up at all.  Unfortunately, she still resists using her thumbs.  I think she became so accustomed to not using them so they wouldn't lock up.  Her preschool teacher told me last week that she has been dropping her cup of juice on herself at snack time, and she did not have that problem before.  So she may also be experiencing some weakness from the surgery.  After her surgery, her OT went on a school break, so she has not resumed regular OT yet.  I'm hoping it will help when she does.



When the eye doctor did the eye exam, he found that in addition to needing glasses, Kamdyn also has a small optic nerve.  He said the growth of the optic nerve is controlled by the pituitary gland, so it indicates a growth deficiency.  Kamdyn saw the endocrinologist (again if you recall this post), and he ordered a blood test to check her human growth hormone and an x-ray to check her bone age.  Her bone age is a year delayed, and her human growth hormone was on the low side of normal.  He said there is a gray area that could go either way, and she falls in that area.  Rather than put her through the 3 1/2 blood draw with shots every 30 minutes to stimulate the hormones, we are going to monitor her growth for a while and go from there.  The endocrinologist commented that Kamdyn is obviously way off of the typical charts, but her size is not that small on the Down syndrome chart.  I never know what to say to this, because the most recent thing I am hearing is that we shouldn't be using the Down syndrome chart.  Yet every doctor uses it.  It also makes me wonder if many of our children have pituitary glands that are producing a minimal amount of growth hormone.  But since everyone just knows that our kids are small (even though not all kids with Down syndrome are), it's written off as a Down syndrome thing.  I wonder if there has been any research done on people with Down syndrome and human growth hormone.


(Checking out her boo-boo right after her casts were sawed off.)

And the glasses:



We decided to go with Tomato Glasses for Kamdyn's first pair of glasses.  So far, I do not regret the choice.  Here is a review that was very helpful to me in my decision-- Review: Baby Glasses.  I'll post another time about how she is doing with them, once she's had them for a while.