Well, we were at Children's Hospital and I thought that we would get coordinated care. She suggested the geneticist and when I asked for a recommendation, she didn't refer to the one at her hospital or any other one. She said go to your PCM. Now we don't have a PCM per se. We do have a pediatrician and he referred us to endocrinologist and gave us a list of three. One didn't take our insurance, and the second one was Children's NMC. That is the one we made an appointment with and then later, I ccontacted the National Osteoporosis Foundation who referred me to another doctor at Children's who is a specialist on osteoporosis in children. Since our appointment with the endocrinologist was in less than a week when I got the recommendation, we went with seeing the first endocrinonologist thinking if she didn't have an answer, she would send us to her collegea at the hospital who is the specialist and runs a bone clinic. No such luck. Now my insurance (Tricare North) has some of the worse referral lists like docotrs who are hospitalists and only see children that are inpatient, doctors who don't see kids this age or no longer take our insurance or have wrong phone numbers, etc, etc. My dh doesn't understand that for each new doctor I get for anyone I spend at least an hour or two searching. Since my girls and I all need many specialists, this takes so much time. I think I will try a geneticist at Georgetown Hospital or maybe John Hopkins. I don't mind the travel as long as I get someone who asks relevant questions and takes the time. Usggesting Marfans to medium sized people is not my idea of a good suggestion.

Yes, her phosphorus levels were normal. The only things different with her are that her second vitamin d levels are low, her creatinine level is slightly low, her IGA level is high and her creatinine/BUN level was off but only as an 11 year old and not as a 12 year old.

Yes, sh has had vitamin d levels testing. In June she was high on Vitamin d levels and then she was on the low side in January or February. That can't be the sole cause of her problems since one of her two atraumatic fractures was in August 2008 right after her high Vit d level test and when she was living in Florida and swimming outside every day, usually without sunscreen.

Hey Missplacedalaskan, I see you have 19 years in. When you hit 20, and anytime after that, he will be able to retire. When you retire, they move you anywhere (and I do mean anywhere on Earth). No more worries about how far from home base you are.

I was reading earlier that people who held onto to stock pre-Depression had to wait until early 60's to get it back to profit. I don't claim to know what to do with stocks that have lost their value. I do think there are probably good bargains out there for people who didn't have anything invested and now what to invest. As to 10-12% returns, I think Bernard Madoff was promising those and delivering until his Ponzi scheme fell apart. Investing in the stock market is a gamble. The problem was that many people close to retirement age or in retirement had their nest eggs there. That was unwise and not what many advisors recommended. The standard recommendation I have always heard is invest more liberally when you are young and can afford risks, start being more conservative by mid 40's. Get completely conservative by retirement except for any extra funds you have.

I loved homeschooling in California. It was far easier than Fl or VA which are far easier than PA. I would never move to PA because of the homeschooling laws there. The same goes for NY and MA. VA is about as bad as I want it to get. I lived in southern Ca twice but both times before homeschooling. (My okdest was too little). Hawthorn is inland in the South Bay community. I am sure there are many homeschoolers in South Bay. Anaheim is in Orange County and there are tons of homeschooling groups there too. I homeschooled up in Sacramento County for four years and remember the time very fondly. The only problem I had with CA homeschooling was that the library system was not as useful as all the others. Even back in the 90's, they were always having budget problems. I think that with CA's current budget problems, those library budgets have probably shrunk. However, as long as you can tolerate the traffic, the wonderful educational opportunities there are overflowing. Great musuems, wonderful natural ecosystem variety, wonderful weather, wonderful cultural opportunities, etc, etc,

Hi all, I have written about this before. My primary concern is my youngest who has osteoporosis for unknown reasons. She also has hyperlaxity to some degree. Her older sister has hyperlaxity and is developing mitral valve relapse. We saw a pediatric endocrinologist yesterday who recommended that the youngest take a multivitamin with 400 iu of vitamin d and took some more bloodwork and told us to seek out a geneticist. I am not sure how much I trust her, though, because she didn't ask very many questions and didn't seem all that concerned about my youngest having severe osteoporosis according to the bone scan. Now if she wasn't certain about the validity of the bone scan, I would think she would order another one done the way it should be done (acording to her). She is thinking her vit d levels are low and is checking some other things like parathyroid levels. In the meantime, she thinks I should take both girls to a geneticist. Now my questions is how to do this. I have had the older girl checked for OI when she was a baby (she had blue sclera) and they ruled it out due to non-history of my husband or me. (Now I have read that some OI people don't get all that many fractures and I have had nine or 10 in my life, so far). Then last summer, we took girl #2 to a genetecist and she ruled out ehlers-danos syndrome though she never observed girl#1 who has even more laxity. Fine, I am not looking to have these girls labeled but rather helped. The endocrinologist yesterday mentioned genetic problems like Marfans but none of us are very tall and the girls are fully on the average size in height. Nor do anyone of us look like basketball players or Abraham Lincoln. SInce I now live in the DC area, I could go to the NIH, to John Hopkins, to a special center that deals with OI, to a specialist in Ehlers Danos, to a regualr geneticist who thinks that my dd weak bones and other dd jaw, shoulder, hand problems are minor compared to the severe genetic problems they normally see, etc, etc. I have tons of doctor choices and after the dud of an endocrinologist (it turns out that she is a diabetic specialist and probably doesn't know that much about bones) I am perplexed. ANy helpful suggestions out there?

Dawn, I will be praying for you.

I am a TCK married to a dh who never fit into his original area and now we have 3 TCk children. But like Sebastian, I think that it is different. We are military and we have lived in many unique cultures in the US and also overseas. Many people who live in the US don't realize how many differences there are here based on where you live. But the weather alters living arrangements and the different cultures that live there make a big difference too. The patterns of life are different in New Mexico, northern California, southern California, midwest, island in the Atlantic coast of Florida, and DC suburbs. Yes, they are all different from Europe too but I think that sometimes the change for me has been harder in the the US.

I don't know what to do. We moved here on Dec. 19th and I still don't feel right. Everyone else in my family has adjusted. I have too, to some extent, like standardized my shopping and errands. I am the one who grew up here so it really doesn't make sense that I feel so uneasy, unhappy, etc. here. We live in a beautiful house in a great neighborhood. We found a nice church where people are friendly and there are many transients like us. I found a nice 4h group for my girls. I think it is the darkness that is so discouraging. Compared to the traumas of last year, I am on easy street but it sure doesn't feel like that. My dh and Ds love the Korean markets and the diversity of the restuarants. Both dds love the fact we live in woods and see deer, fox, and and lots of interesting birds. The younger dd loves her new church youth group. I know it was a good thing that we were stationed here since my younger dd has been finally diagnosed with osteoporosis and we have the specialists here in town to find out why she has that (she had the problem in Florida but they didn't do a bone scan and so kept missing it). It just is me and although I can logically recite all the reasons I should be happy here, it just istn't happening.

I immediately took the crib apart and put her on the mattress on the floor. We got a toddler bed within a few days. I wasn't going to risk broken limbs. I put bells on the outside of the door so I would know if she was leaving.

We have done the ER for broken bones (not usually but sometimes), eye injuries (2 different times, 2 different causes), bad cuts that needed stitches, animal bites (2 times, different children, different animals), breathing problems, and one time- for fever. That one time (actually two days in a row on a holiday weekend) it turned out that it was pneumonia. The first night they told me it was nothing, and I went back again the next night when it didn't seem like nothing to me and she kept having a high fever even with medications. Once we started the anti-biotic, her fever came down soon.

Praying for you. Please get help for depression if you need it.

I take methotrexate once a week, plaquenil daily (both for disease control) and lortab three times daily (for pain control),

We are doing 10th now Geometry and then Alg 2 (probably will start next month) BJU CHemistry BJU SPanish 2 Lightening Lit American Lit (2 courses) Road Map to The Last Great Hope AMerican History Honors Psychology at CC Intro to Music History (1/2 credit) Driver's Ed (1/2 credit)

My dd is taking BJU Chemistry now and will take some type of Biology next year. For her, Biology is harder because of all the memorization necessary.

In 2006 when we moved back to the US, we decided to rent as we didn't think we would live in that area long enough to make it worthwhile. We rented and others who bought then have lost money. Then last year, we could have had dh retire. I told him to wait to see if he got the promotion since I thought the economy would get worse and it was not a great time to look for jobs especially if a Democrat was elected President (my husband would be looking for defense jobs and defense spending typically falls in a Democrat administration, not a political comment). He was selected for promotion and because he stayed in, we will have a better retirement and one of our children will get most of their college fully paid.

I think it totally depends on the child. My older two (both introverts) don't like to share rooms. My youngest (an extrovert) is lonely in her room. We have enough bedrooms for no one to share and they don't. The ones who would share (dd 15 and dd12) can't share well. DD15 is so much easier to get along with for the whole family if she can be alone. DD12 doesn't spend much time in her room except when she is listening to a tape, reading at times, or sleeping. I shared my room with my young sister. It was horrible. I was so aware of problems that I made sure we had room for the two girls to be apart when ds left for college. When ds unexpectedly returned home, we left off having an office for 3/4 of a year rather than have the girls share again.

I am not sure how learning disabilities are dealt with in Canada. In the US, people with LD can get the same materials as the Blind. That is, we have a federally funded program here where books are turned into Talking Books and this program is available for both the blind and the LD population who cannot read so that they can finish high school and go on to college. In a number of colleges here, there are programs to help disabled succeed. I would contact similar agencies in Canada. I would guess that you all would have something like Talking Books too.

Thanks Jann for the reply. Can I ask what else are you using for biology? It sounds like it would be good for her.

So someone on a local list recommended thinkwell and told us about the discount available on the homeschool buying coop. Since that didn't have much description, I went to the website and saw that the programs were listed as AP Biology, AP Chemistry, etc. Are these really AP? I am looking for programs for my very auditory high schooler who has difficulties with memorizing things if she reads them but has an excellent auditory memory. Next year we plan on doing biology but since she isn't planning on going on to science degrees, I don't think AP is necessary at all. On the other hand, they also have some other courses for which AP might suit her better. Are these stand-alone courses? What are your experiences with these?

I was thinking about this and figured out that I only knew four couples in the 23 years of our marriage who we knew while they were married and then they divorced. This is with us living in many different places and attending many different churches in that time. Out of those four, two I didn't assign any blame. One I had suspected something was off with the husband and it turned out that he disliked their third child (the only girl and one that was born less than a year after her older brother) and that he had been hiding assets for years and left suddenly when he accumulated enough and filed for divorce and custody of the boys. He didn't get it and later stopped working just so he wouldn't have to pay child support. He alienated his sons since they didn't like the way he treated their mom and sister. Shad had tried marriage counseling before he abandoned them with several churches and the pastors tried to talk reason into him. He refused to change his ways. The other I assigned blame was a mother who suddenly left the close in age husband and moved in with a much younger man who worked in the same place as they all did. She also left the children who were devasted. The little girl started always looking sad and her younger brother regressed. Mom and new boyfriend were expecting a new baby about about a year after she left. I am a Christian but in both of the two cases where I assign blame, I wouldn't have a problem with the divorce.

I was tested low in August or September (I lived in Florida then and definitely had enough sun) and was put on mega dose of Vit d for about six weeks and off three weeks and then test. It came back ok. SO then my rheumatologist (I have a type of arthritis) out me on 400 IU once a day to maintain. Move here in late Dec, test in late January and I am low again plus I have a DEXA scan and I have osteoporosis in my upper back, osteopenia in my lower, and am fine in my legs. Now my 12 yo has osteoporosis and isn't on anything yet since she is going to see a pediatric endicrinologist in a few weeks and hopefully she will have some clue as to why a 12yo active, milk drinking, sunshine getting (until we moved up here) child has this. So anyway, I am back on mega dose of Vit d once a week for longer this time and then the new rheumy will retest again.

My son has a friend who goes to a large state school. His parents sent him there because of the finances and they had gone to state schools. However, he never lived in the state and it is very local. He is somewhat ostracized since he has lived in many states and countries. I really do think that fitting in with the student body is very important.

I get two newspapers here. One had a sad luck story about a woman being foreclosed. The other later published the real story. SHe bought the house at a lower price, refinanced at a much higher price, than sat in the house for a year and half paying nothing toward the mortgage and of course, no rent. Other stories we have here are the low paid immigrants buying 500,000 dollar houses. They managed to do that byu paying some artificially low payments at first and now they are up to full payments. Since we couldn't afford a 500,000 house with quite a good salary (and very steady employment), who lent them money like that? I have no idea what anybody was thinking. Greed seems to be the keyword for both the mortgage lenders and the home owners. I don't have any idea how we were making 75,000 and could buy a 169,000 home in 1999 and in 2005, people who were making 75,000 could buy 400,000. It doesn't make sense and I blame both plus the government for forcing banks to make mortgages to people who were likely to default.