Micro WHAT!?!?! The words no man wants to hear….

Disclaimer: These pictures have absolutely nothing to do with the story I’m sharing in this post, but what fun is reading the story with no pictures? They are so cute, I had to share them with you!! I’ll caption them in parenthesis above the photos so you know what you’re looking at, although it is pretty obvious, but more so, that you know it’s not part of the story I’m telling.

(Elijah doting over little brother, this is a very common picture in our house)

So, to the story behind the title of the blog.. When I was a 911 dispatcher, shift change happened for us very quickly. Literally in seconds, we would have to unplug our headset and ever so quickly have the new dispatcher plug in to ensure we didn’t miss any radio traffic from our police officers, firefighters, paramedics, etc. It literally took 1 second to swap dispatchers from the old to the new because we type so quickly, the one leaving would log off and just as quickly as the new one sat down and plugged in, they would be logged on and recording data immediately ready for whatever the 911 world had to offer.

(Gideon is now grasping at things and bringing things to his mouth which is very exciting for Elijah who loves to play with him the most and for me because that is good development he is showing.)

So the dispatcher shift change was instant. As a nurse, that’s a whole different story.  When we were living in Children’s Hospital for Gideon’s’ first month, the nurses shift change took about an hour each time. There are layers of pages of documentation of what happened with their kiddos for the 12 hours before they got on shift and the leaving nurse would have to brief the arriving nurse on everything that went on. Especially if the nurse was new to us, she got the whole entire history plus the last 12 hours in great detail. There are so many layers of pages of documentation, vitals, medications, measurements, weights, input, output, etc to go over and they would click through each one and the incoming nurse would take notes on a clipboard as well for things they wanted to remember or needed to do.

(snuggling his easter bunny)

2 nights before we were discharged, during one of the briefings for the oncoming nurse, I could have swore I heard her say “micropenis” but assumed I mis-heard her and blew it off. I had never heard that before and it sounded silly, I was sleep deprived and delirious from living in the hospital for a month, surely, I was wrong.

(he LOVES bath time)

Except that I wasn’t wrong because I heard it again the very next night. I questioned the nurse when I heard it and she said yes, she did say micropenis, it was one of his diagnosis they were following and she could have the doctor tell me about it at rounds in the morning when he came by. I said ok and wondered why he had a new diagnosis I had never heard of before then I went and did what anyone would do. Google: micropenis. Bad idea. I closed my laptop and decided to wait until I could speak with the care team in the morning.

(working those neck muscles holding his head up. He still has very little head control but is making progress each day as we work with him to strengthen these muscles each day).

The next morning, we had rounds and the team did their spiel. Then the cardiologist who had been working with us for the week hung back to discuss this diagnosis with me. He explained it saying that it wasn’t necessarily an anatomical finding, it is likely due to his hormone levels and his cortisol being off and potential thyroid issues which is common after heart surgery and could just be a testosterone level or something and said we needed to follow up with an endocrinologist later, it wasn’t anything emergent. That sort of put my mind at ease about it. But does my boy have a micropenis? Hmmmm… doesn’t look like it to me but he’s 5 lbs and uncircumcised… of course he has a tiny penis. Lol.

(dreaming of boobie buffet while he should be eating but we were getting a good neck stretch in before he woke up)

I stayed off google and decided to wait until we saw the endocrinologist, which we got to do this past week. I’m so thankful for the Seattle Children’s Hospital South Sound Clinic in Federal Way, our Cardiologist is there as well as the endocrinologist so we don’t have to go so far for some of our appointments. The doctor was such a sweet gal,  very kind, friendly and patient with me. She explained that the diagnoses was most certainly due to an anatomical finding and the result of measurements of his penis. She said there are things they can do hormonally that may help him out or we may just ignore it and let him be. They can test his hormones and they will test his thyroid every 6 months because he is a cardiac baby and cardiac kiddos get regular thyroid checks but we can’t do that now because he is in a first puberty state right now. Apparently between 2-4 months, men go through their first puberty stage where male things happen and things grow and move into place so it’s not a good time to test the thyroid. So we have options we can chose from based on the findings of her exam and all the results we would get from testing.

(he has been trying so hard to find his thumb lately to suck on it, Bo finally just stuck it in his mouth the other night and he was so satisfied. He hasn’t been able to get it back on his own but he has got to his thumb knuckle a few times to suck on that for a bit, it’s so cute.)

She did the exam and said Gideon doesn’t have a micropenis at all. She measured multiple times and said absolutely not, he has a completely normal sized penis in length and width, exactly on par with an 8 pound baby – 8 pounds 6 oz to be exact at that appointment. She thinks they measured when he was 5 lbs and he did have a tiny penis but he was a tiny baby so it was even probably proportional then, he was just a tiny little guy and there aren’t really any standards for them to compare it to. Be that as it may, even if he did actually have micropenis, he doesn’t anymore, it has grown in size since it was measured before and everything is in place where it should be for him. YAY! So we don’t even have to do any of the lab tests right now because has normal anatomy.

(best biggest brother ever)

I was happy to leave after a quick appointment with her with some good news and no need to follow up. Cardiology will check his thyroid in 3 more months for their standard cardiac testing and we likely won’t have to see endocrine again. That was good news.

(Ok, have you seen the camel commercial from a few years ago where the camel walks through the office and says “mikemikemikemikemikemikemikemikemike!! What day is it mike!? HUMP DAY!!!!” If you haven’t seen that commercial, go youtube it right now. It’s hysterical. For a long time following that commercial, my dad would call me – his name is Mike – or I would call him on Wednesday every week and say it and we would laugh a lot. It’s sort of died out but recently, I’ve started it back up again texting my mom every single day saying ‘mikemikemikemikemikemikemikemikemike! what time is it mike!? FEEDING TIME!’ always with a picture attached of Gideon SLEEPING. When he should be eating. He likes to sleep, which is great but he needs to eat too. So it’s a huge joke now that I send my family these text messages with the random Mike messages attached and sleeping baby pictures when he should be awake eating. This is one of those times. What time is it mike? FEEDING TIME! Hungy Mike? Starving to death Mike? Hey Mike… anyone there!!!? HELLOOOOO Mike!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hahaha. it’s a funny joke, we all laugh.)

(Again… MIKE… MIKE!!! Are you there Mike!!!!?! EATING TIME MIKE!!!!!!)

(He has the cutest little frown known to man. Bo can make him frown on command, repeatedly and we laugh hysterically while I also die a little bit inside feeling bad for him but it’s just so funny. This is just a glimpse of his sad little frown face but usually the frown is pointed sharply down and the bottom lip sticks out quite far. Really, it’s hysterical. I’ll have to get a better picture for you to see sometime.)
Anyway, that was all for now. Cute pictures and a story I maybe shouldn’t have shared publicly because it’s private but we have decided that we are sharing this journey with those who are willing to pray along side us so we will share the whole journey. The good, the bad, the ugly, so you can pray specifically and celebrate with us when we have victories to celebrate as well. So here is a little celebration you can join with us in. A normal sized penis and 8 pounds and 6 ounces of baby luvin’!

Thanks for following along and keeping our family in your prayers!

There is a fundraiser coming up soon if you’re interested to benefit Seattle Children’s Hospital. It looks like a tasty one too and close to my heart since it’s the fire department I volunteer for putting it on! We hope to have our whole family there to show support but not likely at 7:30 am, we are more of a 10:00am family now :) Maybe you can stop by, show some support and say hi! Let me know if you have any questions about it.

Much love to you all!