Progress marches on

My daughter continues to grow. She has grown about an inch at least in the last month and a half. I know some kids grow six inches overnight but we never fell into that category.

She also continues to adapt to the shots. When we first began this process we mocked the girl on the instructional video who cheerily says that the shots become "just as easy as brushing your teeth" (or something like that. Definitely mentions tooth brushing). But you know... it kind of is true. That hardly happens the first day or even the first month, but it does become so routine. Doesn't take very long, either. A few months ago I was cooking and set the kitchen timer for 3 minutes. During that time I got out the shot and its accoutrements, set it up and administered it and the buzzer hadn't yet gone off.

I still wish we didn't have to do this at all. I still wish there were 80 year olds who had started doing Genotropin as kids and were healthy, strong bones, cancer-free etc. But so far so good, given what we know.

Bigger shoe size

For the past few years G-girl has worn the same shoe size as her younger sister. Yesterday we went shoe shopping and G-Girls feet are bigger. Like, a lot bigger. Once again, hate doing the shots but we are loving the results.

SUCCESS!!!!!!!

We visited with our endocrinologist last Wednesday. After the usual hour and half in the waiting room, we finally saw the doc. Results? Good news!

Childhood growth is measured in centimeters of growth velocity, or how many centimeters the kid grows over the course of a year. Before we started the Genotropin Genogirl was growing at a rate of 3.9 centimeters a year, as measured in March. Now, 6 months later and 5 months into the Geno shots, she is growing at a rate of 7 centimeters a year.

Much happiness and a big, big sigh of relief. Doesn't make the daily shots any easier (especially with a higher dosage to correspond with G-girls increased stature) but it definitely makes them feel more worthwhile.

Visiting the Endocrinologist

Today is our first appointment with the endocrinologist, Dr. N., since G-Girl began her shots. Her progress as measured on our wall chart looks pretty good, but I am eager and nervous for the "official" update.

Generally G-Girl has hated visiting Dr. N, but I assured her that the worst is over. I mean, she's already getting the daily shots and there's nothing worse than that. At least I hope not. More later....

Will it ever get "Normal"?

Last night G-Girl was begging not to have to do her shot. "Can't I just go to sleep and we can start again tomorrow?"

Sometimes it feels like an effortless part of our routine. Other times it doesn't. Poor kid.

Sigh. I know it doesn't feel good (although it usually doesn't hurt THAT much). I wish we could stop doing it, too. I suppose we can--no one is forcing us to do these shots. But we made the decision to do them in her best interest.

2 weeks from today we have our first appointment with the endocrinologist since we started the shots. We can always re-evaluate based on her progress.

Hurting

Last night G-girl's shot hurt so much that she was willing to take Motrin to make it feel better. She's the kind of kid who would usually rather writhe in agony than take any form of pain killer. I'm not sure what I did differently. But I sure felt a lot worse afterwards.

Forgot the shot... again

We were in lovely Aspen CO this weekend. To make a long story short, I slept really poorly Friday night. Was supposed to do a duathlon on Saturday morning but it got cancelled because of the weather. Did a really punishing workout at the Aspen Rec center instead. Had a lovely glass or two or three of sake on Saturday night-- who can count with those silly thimbles. Came back to the hotel, watched some Olympics (USA! USA!) and then gave in to my exhaustion. At some point in the middle of the night I remembered we hadn't given G-Girl her geno shot.

Sigh. It wasn't the first time and it probably won't be the last. Whaddaya gonna do. Try better to remember, I suppose.