Medical News

Last week Simon saw his doctor to follow up on the weight issue. The good news is he grew an inch since his checkup a month ago. He's in the 25th percentile for height. More good news is that the blood tests came back normal. The okay news is that Simon only gained 9.2 ounces in the last month. I was hoping for more, but it's better than he did the month before last. He's still below the 5th percentile for weight, but the doctor says he's started a new curve upward. Hooray! I've been stuffing his face with high-calorie foods, but he still burns a lot of it off, especially now that he's learning to crawl. The doctor thinks everything is fine and that Simon's healthy, since he seems to be thriving in every other area, but she wants to make sure there's no medical reason for his low weight. They took a urine sample, and that came back normal, too. Simon had to wear a urine collection bag around his penis and under his diaper until he peed. Of course he didn't pee for a long time, so I had to go home and drive back to the lab later in the afternoon. Let me tell you, peeling the adhesive from the bag off of my son's tender skin made my teeth itch.

Now for the bad news... Simon has a hernia and needs surgery. In fact, he might have hernias on both sides of his groin. We have to go see a pediatric surgeon to find out more details. Yikes! It's not an emergency, but it needs to be taken care of. I can't imagine my baby having surgery, even the supposedly simple surgery of hernia repair. He might have to stay overnight in the hospital. That's going to be rotten. I'm not looking forward to it.