Kindergarten!!!

Kindergarten is here! Sam is loving it. It took quite a bit to get things ready, but we did. I almost scheduled the surgery the last week of August. I'm so glad I didn't. The day before school started we did our traditional get up early an go out for breakfast and clothes shopping to help jump start getting up early thing. We were at the Mall of America and he did a lot of walking with his walker but we did notice his right leg looked different the way he held it.

The week after surgery, before he was walking on a regular basis, he met his teacher for an assessment of where he was. This is done with all the kids. The teacher had lots of questions about what he would need and I didn't have real firm answers. I emailed her the next week with an update. That started a fury of emails and phone calls to make sure everything was set. The school has assigned a para to him to insure he is safe. His teacher told me one day that she caught him trying to climb up the play fridge they have in the room.

First day, pictured above, is an orientation with parents. He was disappointed that it was so short and I was with him the whole time! He was so excited to get on the bus the next morning. Wouldn't even turn around for a picture! We do hand the walker up to the aid and he uses the railings to climb with.

Sam is not using a walker at home any more. We send it to school to use in the hallways, but he doesn't use it in the classroom any more. His official restrictions from surgery have ended. The school wants a statement from the doctor about what he should be doing and not. We do not have a visit scheduled until March. I'm trying to get hold of the doctor for this.  He starts PT next week. So hopefully the therapist can give us some answers the school is looking for.

I did get the results of the DXA scan. Overall he has good bone density, looking at the whole body scan. his hips (which I am learning refers to the pelvis and the proximal femur attached to it) and femurs are fragile though, espically the right distal femur. So there will be another fracture someday. A few times a week something happens that makes my heart stop. I get this sinking feeling, thinking momentarily that something has happened. Like this past Sunday. I was in the elementary kids program, helping in the back with the tech stuff. A volunteer from the preschool-Kindergarten room came to the door and talked to a worker there. I had the sinking feeling that lasted the whole time until I got up to the volunteer and found out he was only acting out and not cooperating. We are there for two services and he was bored with things by the middle of the second service.

Sorry it has taken me so long to post about school. I guess once I finally got it all set up I just collapsed in a way. I am starting to come around a bit. I have started going to the gym again to use the elliptical.

"We are not praying because we believe that God will heal our Audrey. We don’t know that He will.

We are praising Him because He can. "

from angiesmithonline.com

Long day of appointments....done!

Today Sam had 2 appointments and a DEXA scan, at two different locations.

We started in St. Paul to meet with Dr. Sheridan, endocrinologist. Basically things are good, few things to watch and we go back in 6 months. His T3 was elevated but his TSH was normal. T4 was normal so for now we just watch. T3 can be elevated due to growing too. We are not going to do the pamidronate right now. While pamidronate does help strengthen the bone, it also changes its' structure. There is not enough long term studies out there on pediatric use. it is technically considered an off label use. If Sam were to have more fractures, like more than 5 in a year, its' use will be reconsidered. I didn't ask but I know it is used in children as pain control too. I will ask about that next time. 6 months will give us a good amount of time to see how he heals from the last surgery.

Dr. sheridan's nurse felt bad for us that we were running back and forth, so she gave us two coupons for free parking before we left. So before leaving St. Paul, I got Sam a treat from the Ginko cafe. We then took off for Burnsville.

There we met with April, the orthopedic nurse practioner. She pulled off the tagaderm and steristrips from Sam's incisions. I think this was the hardest part of the day for Sam. I ended up giving him acetaminophen and oxy-codone at this point. The incisions underneath looked very good. He can now go in water. So maybe a bath tonight will get rid of that dirt on his legs that will not scrub off. She went and talked to Dr. Healy, who was there too and came back and told us that we didn't need to go back for 6 months. Kind of surprised me. I thought we would get an x-ray close to the 6 week mark to see how the holes are filling in. Sam will get the standing lower body x-ray to check on everything. We will be starting PT in October.

We then got back in the car and went home to Rosemount to pick up Sam's sisters. I figured the DEXA scan would not finish before Richard had to go to work so I took them with. Well I took Ella with. Zoe I dropped off at her friends for a slumber party in Eagan.

Back in St. Paul we had the scan. this is the same kind of bone density scan used for post-menopausal women. however for kids they do more scans. It was actually 6, the lumbar spine area, right hip, left hip, right femur, left femur and a full body scan. The full body scan was the longest. It was actually 3 passes of the C shaped arm, right side, middle and left side. Ella did great waiting for us. Sam had a hard time keeping his toes still. He kept wiggling them and the hip and leg scans had to be restarted because of it. it will take a week to get the results. We finally got it done and could head home for the final time today.

So 6 months until we see a specialist again. Feels kind of strange after so many appointments for the last year. Time to regroup and let Sam be a kindergartner. Though I kind of felt this way August 2010, one year after the tree fell on my kids, my mom died, Sam broke tibea, then femur. Sam broke the other femur 6 weeks later. So what will happen?