Monday, February 27, 2006

Appointment updates

Callum & Kieran both had doctors appointments on Friday, Callum with the hematologist and Kieran had his 18 month check up.

Callum
They think he has autoimmune neutropenia, he need a couple more blood tests to confirm but because he's so healthy that's what they think it is. What that means is that his immune system isn't quite developed and he's producing antibodies to his own neutrophil (which are a type of white blood cell that fight infection), he should outgrow it within the next couple of years and until then they'll just monitor his blood and if he gets sick and the numbers drop really low then they'll treat him with something called Granulocyte Colony-Stimulating Factor (G-CSF)which stimulates the body into producing more neutrophil.

The doctors were both really nice and we go back in a month for a follow up. We haven't done his blood test yet because the wait for the lab was nearly and hour and we'd already been at the hospital for 90 minutes. We also need to do a follow up weight check - at Callum's pre-op physical and the beginning of the month he was 31lbs, at his appointment on Friday he was only a little over 28lbs. I know scales can be a little off but 3lbs (10% of his body weight) sounds like a pretty big drop to me in less than a month.


Kieran
Kieran has been healthy for at least 6 weeks but on the morning of his appointment, when he's supposed to be getting his vaccinations he wakes up with a streaming nose! I'm sure he must be trying to avoid those needles. He weighed in at 28 lbs and grew a couple of inches, he's at about 80th percentile for weight and about 40th for height - his doctor did assure me that he wouldn't always be square!! Couple of little eczema patches and his cold but apart from that he's doing great. He's getting 4 teeth at the moment - 3 incisors and 1 molar which would explain why he's been a little cranky lately. A quick dose of Vitamin M (Mortin) and he's happy.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

My son was surfing the net and came upon your blog, which is in itself not unusual except that I have two children (sons) who are named Callum and Kieran. What I found unusual is that their names are spelt exactly the same way in a name pool of so many variations.

Callum is 15 years of age, doing well at school, and Kieran is an apprentice carpenter/builder.

Both have turned out to be really good kids - I wish you all the best with the health of your Kieran and Callum.

Naomi said...

Janice - thanks for stopping by. How funny that we both chose the same names for our kids :-) Glad to hear that your 2 are doing well and hopefully my 2 will turn out just as well.

Anonymous said...

Wow, both the boys are close in size now, do they wear the same size?

As I mentioned on the forum, I am glad to hear that you have avoided the "L" word and that the condition he has with his immune system is treatable.

Kim Ayres said...

Do you have a set of scales at home? It might be easier to keep a check of his weight at home, as you can then weigh him at the same time of day and with the same level of clothing.

Naomi said...

rebecca - Thanks. Kieran is in 18-24 months and some 2T. Callum is mostly in 2T. Callum still has a couple of inches on Kieran but we're often asked if they're twins.

Kim - Good idea, I'll dig out the scales (they're hidden away at the moment because I don't want to look)

Anonymous said...

naomi: I missed the last sentance about weight loss, caught it after Kim posted. Wow, that is quite a bit of weight.

Anonymous said...

Keep up the good work »