Growth Hormones & "Pokeys"

When the nurse came on Monday morning the 27th of July we were excited and very nervous. She was wonderful. She brought everything to teach us and to do the shot on fake skin. It seemed daunting but after a few tries we both felt it was doable. Liam, wasn't too sure. She went over the locations on his body we could inject him (back of arms, right above his bum, his thighs and his tummy) and went over each step in the process. It seems like a long process until you do it everyday! Here are the steps:

- take the pen out of the fridge and collect all needed supplies-alcohol wipe, needle, pen, ***Spiderman Bandaid***.

-pull off cap and clean the tip w/alcohol wipe- set aside

-open new needle and screw onto pen

-dial the correct dose

- clean injection area with opposite side of alcohol wipe

-inject skin, press button and hold for 7 seconds

-Most important step to a 3 year old-Bandaid and putting sticker on his reward chart.

So that's it. The first two weeks it was hard for me to do but after that he got much better. He now (after only one month) prepares it all on his own and plays while we give it to him!!! He even reminds us if we forget to do his "pokey" as he calls it. We measured him the first day and at one month into the shots and he grew one whole inch in ONE month!!we are so excited!!!

UPDATE: I forgot to publish this! It has now been 3 months and 2 weeks since we started the Norditropin injections. We had an appointment at Children's Hospital in September with Dr. Travers, the pediatric Endocrinologist. At that point it had been 6 or 7 weeks and though we were super excited about the progress...she wasn't thrilled. Which was kind of annoying. She said that since it had only been almost 2 months she wasn't expecting too much and raised his dose from 0.4 to 0.45 and said we should come back in January to see if there's a huge difference, which she expects. That's fine, just a little disappointing, I guess we were hoping for a 6 foot 3 year old. 😳😎. Anyway, Liam is doing great! He's in preschool and on the low normal size for his class. He's doing so well. The one thing we are a little concerned about- night terrors. It's the only thing that has changed- symptom wise- since starting the GH. He has the about 3-4 nights a week and wakes up screaming and yelling "Nooooo!!!!" And it's very hard to calm him down and wake him up. But after a little while he does. They only usually last about 45 minutes off and on. Other wise he has not complained about leg or arm or hip pain.  He definitely looks a lot older! Here's a pic