12-Month Well Baby Appointment

On Friday, we took the girls for their 12-month well baby visit at the High Risk Clinic with Dr. Chen, the neonatologist.

Makayla weighed in at 17 pounds, 13 ounces, and is 29.5 inches long. Her height is right at the 50th percentile, but her weight is below the 5th percentile (she doesn't LOOK skinny, though!!). Her head circumference is a little above the 50th percentile. Oddly enough, her BMI is no higher than Mackenzie's!! Weird, I know! I discussed my concerns about possible food allergies (again) with the doc, and she did a blood test to check for dairy allergy. It's not the most reliable test, and if it comes back negative, it doesn't rule out a dairy allergy...but it's a place to start. She also has an upper respiratory infection - as you can see in her picture...I'm so tired of snot!!

Mackenzie weighed in at 14 pounds, 14 ounces, and is 27 inches long. Her height is below the 5th percentile, and her weight is WAY below the 5th percentile. Her head circumference is right at the 5th percentile. Both her and Makayla's BMI is 14. Ha ha...mine's probably in the mid 30's!! The doc didn't actually put "failure to thrive" on her list of diagnoses for the visit - she just put "weight gain, poor." She IS thriving - she's just growing v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y!!! Actually, her appetite had just been getting really good right before her surgery...and of course, the surgery was a big setback. The doctor wants us to keep her on infant formula - she's currently on GentleEase - at 27 calories/ounce, plus she wants us to add 1 mL of safflower oil per ounce to give her extra fat. She had her first bottle like that tonight and she drank it fine, so it must not taste bad. We talked about the anemia again; the doc is reviewing her iron dosage and will email me tomorrow. She said we will do more bloodwork in a month with some additional tests to further explore what's going on.

They had to get 4 shots each, one in each leg and two in one arm. Ouch! I performed acrobatics and leaned over the table to allow Makayla to nurse while she got her shots, which did help, but she was pretty mad when she had to get blood drawn a short time later!! Poor Mackenzie couldn't even have a binky, thanks to her palate repair....

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In other, completely unrelated news, please pray for my dad. Several weeks ago, he had a biopsy on his prostate, due to having elevated PSA levels. Out of the 12 samples taken, one came back "abnormal," though the doc couldn't call it cancer. The sample was sent off to Johns Hopkins for review, and that pathologist said it IS cancer. As a result of that, my dad had a CT scan and a bone scan. The CT scan showed something on one of his kidneys, and this week, he had an MRI to further look at that. He met with the doctor Friday afternoon, and it is definitely a tumor on his kidney, about 2.5 x 3 cm. The doctors think it is cancer, but totally unrelated to the prostate cancer. He has to meet with a couple different docs, because he has Crohn's Disease, so the typical cancer treatments can throw his Crohn's Disease into a tailspin...it can get complicated. Anyway, we are praying that both cancers (if, in fact, the kidney tumor IS cancer) can be removed completely by surgery. He will have to have two separate surgeries - the doc already told him they can't do it all at once because it would be an 8 hour operation, which they won't do. Please pray for healing and peace for my dad, and for wisdom for the doctors. Thanks!