Xavier's One-Year Checkup
Greetings to everyone.
Yesterday began Xavier's second year outside the womb, and what a year that first one was! Today, Xavier visited Dr. Abbey for his one-year exam.
Xavier is doing very well. His heart, lungs, ears, throat, hips, genitals, feet, developmental and motor skills are all where expected, with one notable exception: Xavier's slow growth and his not eating the amounts he should be eating.
He weighed in today at 13 pounds 0.6 ounces. That was not what we expected to see. Just last Friday, when we took him in to have him checked because he was vomiting up all his food for the past week, he weighed in at 13 pounds and 4.4 ounces. In four days he dropped 3.8 ounces. (True, it was a different scale today than Friday, but I was assured the variance between the scales in the doctor's office is 0.2 ounces at the most).
Dr. Abbey asked if we had been using the electric toothbrush technique he recommended a few months ago. We have not. The point of the electric toothbrush is to desensitize the oral nerves (The vibrations of the electric toothbrush is the motion that will desensitize Xavier's mouth). Dr. Abbey thinks his mouth is overly sensitive and that is why Xavier resists his bottle as he does. Also, now that Xavier has teeth, we need to step up and brush them anyway (at least adult toothpaste can be used we learned).
So, it's a trip to Walgreens, Walmart or Target to get a simple electric brush. We need to pick up a temporal thermometer anyway.
Dr. Abbey is also going to call Children's and "put a fire under them" to get Xavier into the eating treatment program. Rebecca called last week to get in (Dr. Abbey wrote us a prescription in February for the class and our insurance has approved it). It takes 4 to 6 weeks to get scheduled in. Dr. Abbey thinks he can pull some strings and get Xavier in sooner.
The concern Dr. Abbey has about Xavier's slow intake of food is the development of his brain. It is in a crucial state of development now and through about two years of age. His brain needs the nutrients in the food he is not eating. It was a little scary this morning to hear this. Many learning disorders are often traced back to this time in the brain's development. They begin at this stage of development, but the effects are diagnosed years later. So, we are asking Father to guide us and Xavier and to heal whatever it is that makes him so fussy at eating.
The eating discussion segued nicely into the tongue-tied discussion. Dr. Abbey had forgotten he noted this condition last year and thanked us for reminding him. With the assistance of Sam (short for Samantha), a young PA making the rounds with him today, they managed (after retrieving a specialized tool; Xavier proved too squirmy for a simple tongue depressor) to examine the ligament.
Xavier's lingual frenulum ligament (the ligament tying his tongue) is vascular, carrying blood. Dr. Abbey was not able to snip this kind of ligament, and it will require an oral surgeon who can cauterize the cut. Had it not been vascular, Dr. Abbey would have clipped the ligament this morning. "Let's take care of that now," he said, before learning the vascular nature of the ligament.
Xavier also got four more shots today, two of them being new: measles, mumps and rubella, and hepatitis A. Not only did he get four pokes (two in each thigh), he had to endure pink camouflage bandaids.
Here are his stats:
- Weight
- 13 pounds 0.6 ounces. Up about a pound from his 9 month weigh-in
- Length
- 25.5 inches. Up an inch and a quarter from his 9 month length in February
- Head Circumference
- 17.25 inches. This is about an eighth inch larger than at 9 months