News on Felix

Last Thursday we took Felix to his appointment at Children's Hospital's International Adoption Clinic. They only make appointments to evaluate internationally adopted children on Thursday mornings, thus the reason we've waited so long.

This was the first time I've been to Children's Hospital -- it was like the Disney Land of hospitals! We met with several different doctors - a pediatrician with experience working in Africa, a Physical Therapist, Occupational Therapist, Psychologist - who all thought that Felix was amazing and healthy. Seriously. They were all impressed and saw no issues at all.

The pediatrician said that he may have been severely malnourished at one point, but that it looks like he's already made up for that, and he expects to see NO long term effects. The psychologist thought he was bonding well (as evidenced by all of the hugs and kisses he was giving out). She also gave us some bonding ideas and activities we could do. The PT expects him to be an athlete and the OT was impressed that he could do every task she threw at him from copying her stack of blocks to threading beads on a string.

Hooray!

Then came the blood work. I'm surprised that he had that much blood in his little body! He cried when they were taking it all, but stopped immediately when they took the needle out.

So we were very pleased with the appointment and our super star little boy.

Unfortunately the bad news came on Saturday when the doctor called us with the results of the blood work. It turns out that Felix has hypothyroidism which, if you're not familiar, is when the thyroid doesn't produce enough of it's hormone, which is a major regulator for many functions in the body.

The good news is that he does show some trace of the hormone, so his thyroid was working properly at some point. It is obviously decreasing, but this is most likely a recent-ish thing since he shows no outward symptoms of having hypothyroidism. Side effects would be limited physical growth and inability to learn. We know that he grew a LOT from the time his birth mother brought him in until the time when we left Ethiopia. And we know that he is one sharp cookie. What other 22 month old changes his own diaper, gets himself dressed, and can button his own shirt? Anyway, the doctor said if he had never produced the thyroid hormone he would be mentally retarded at this point.

The downside is that this requires lifelong treatment. It's not something that he will grow out of, or something that can be cured, so he'll be on medication for it forever. While I am sad about that for him, I am really thankful that it's "only" this. We've seen other children come home with issues that are much more severe, so I am glad that this is something manageable.

I also can't help but think what would have happened if Felix was still living in Ethiopia. There is no way that they would have ever known this (or been able to afford the medication to treat it). Eventually he would have stopped growing physically and mentally and he would have been just another one of the people we saw living (or dying) on the street. It's surreal to think about since we can see such HUGE potential in him. Maybe his birth mother saw that in him as well.