I just want to sit down and cry (sorry, it got long)

[Kathleen in VA]

I just read this article:

 

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/10/03/anesthesia-risk-for-kids-highlighted-in-new-study/

 

I know it says the findings are inconclusive but still, I'm stunned. Ds15 had surgery when he was 2 weeks old for pyloric stenosis. Dh and I sat patiently in the waiting room for the doctor to come and tell us how things were going. After a while a nurse anesthetist (sp?) came and told us that he was out of surgery, doing fine, but that he wasn't waking up from the anesthesia as quickly as they would like. I remember it clearly because they said he wasn't crying yet - that they were waiting for him to cry. I joked and told them to try singing to him because he always cried when I sang to him. He stayed under for awhile and I tried not to panic, but he finally woke up and I never thought about it again until now.

 

Anyway, here were are 15 years later. I knew he was slower than my others, but just kept thinking he'd catch on. He didn't start really talking until he was about 4, but I had heard similar things about Einstein and other intelligent people so I didn't worry. He still has a little difficulty speaking - not forming words - just getting his thoughts out. He struggles a LOT with math and science. He loves history and he loves to write - he's always writing stories (they're not great, but I just let him go with it). Everything I teach him has to be repeated several times in several ways. He reads it, I ask him questions, he can't formulate answers, I have him read it again, I have him write the answer on the chalkboard, I have him explain it to me, then he can finally write it down. If his dad asks him about it later, he can't think of how to say it.

 

I feel like a failure as a mom and a teacher. I'm worried about how he will do in the real world if he can't remember anything he's learned. I wonder how he can be so clever and funny on the one hand and how he can struggle so much with things on the other. He can carry on a decent conversation - he seems normal to me. But when it comes to recalling information or explaining things he just freezes.

 

I'm just sitting here wanting to cry - not really sure why. I don't know what to think but I feel certain he has some kind of disability - I just have no idea what it is. I feel so bad for him. I feel so frustrated about the anesthesia, but he would have died without the surgery. I don't know what to do next.

[Jean in Newcastle]

No answers but :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

[CarolfromIL]

:grouphug:

[Dana]

My husband has pyloric stenosis as an infant as well. He had no issues from the surgery, although his mother made sure he was baptized before the operation! This isn't one that's optional!

 

So do your best not to feel guilty. The surgery wasn't optional.

:grouphug:

[Hedgehog]

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

 

I'm sorry. My nephew has uncontrollable epilepsy (as yet - 10yrs - no drugs have ever worked) so I know something of what it is to have a child who struggles to learn and remember. But he has some great qualities which have nothing to do with academics. :grouphug:

[ondreeuh]

Kathleen, I am right here with you. What we need to keep in mind is that the risk of surgery was worth the benefit. Our boys lived, and I'm sure your son is as delightful as mine. These weren't elective, cosmetic surgeries they had, they were life-saving.

 

I won't ever know if my son's struggles are due to anesthesia. The ADHD and dyslexia are strong on his dad's side of the family. Maybe he was destined to have these difficulties anyway. Maybe your son was too. The best we can do it look at who they are as individuals and do our best by them.

 

(My son has been under anesthesia 7 times - four for heart surgeries, one for urinary testing, 1 for an MRI, 1 for tubes).

[Mergath]

:grouphug: It's hard when you feel responsible for your child's medical issues. My dd has a genetic disorder that causes developmental delays, and I keep thinking back to all the things I did to possibly have caused it.

 

I don't know if it makes any difference, but the article seems to be referring to kids who were put under repeatedly, not just once, before the age of two.

[Denisemomof4]

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:I'm so sorry. Have you ever had him tested for a processing disorder? There are things that can be done to help.

[elegantlion]

Kathleen :grouphug:, you made the decision you had to years ago. I have no doubt you have instilled wonderful qualities in your son, things that have nothing to do with academics.

 

:grouphug::grouphug:

[Aubrey]

:grouphug:

[Harriet Vane]

:grouphug:

[UmMusa]

I'm sorry it's weighing so heavily on you, and I hope that can be eased. You had no control over his newborn surgery, and I know you didn't expect it to affect his development. You can turn you perspective around and know that the surgery saved his life, and hopefully that'll help.

[Joanne]

:grouphug:

 

I have some similar feelings about my dd's disease and my oldest's asthma.

[2boysmom]

I just read this article:

 

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/10/03/anesthesia-risk-for-kids-highlighted-in-new-study/

 

I know it says the findings are inconclusive but still, I'm stunned. Ds15 had surgery when he was 2 weeks old for pyloric stenosis. Dh and I sat patiently in the waiting room for the doctor to come and tell us how things were going. After a while a nurse anesthetist (sp?) came and told us that he was out of surgery, doing fine, but that he wasn't waking up from the anesthesia as quickly as they would like. I remember it clearly because they said he wasn't crying yet - that they were waiting for him to cry. I joked and told them to try singing to him because he always cried when I sang to him. He stayed under for awhile and I tried not to panic, but he finally woke up and I never thought about it again until now.

 

Anyway, here were are 15 years later. I knew he was slower than my others, but just kept thinking he'd catch on. He didn't start really talking until he was about 4, but I had heard similar things about Einstein and other intelligent people so I didn't worry. He still has a little difficulty speaking - not forming words - just getting his thoughts out. He struggles a LOT with math and science. He loves history and he loves to write - he's always writing stories (they're not great, but I just let him go with it). Everything I teach him has to be repeated several times in several ways. He reads it, I ask him questions, he can't formulate answers, I have him read it again, I have him write the answer on the chalkboard, I have him explain it to me, then he can finally write it down. If his dad asks him about it later, he can't think of how to say it.

 

I feel like a failure as a mom and a teacher. I'm worried about how he will do in the real world if he can't remember anything he's learned. I wonder how he can be so clever and funny on the one hand and how he can struggle so much with things on the other. He can carry on a decent conversation - he seems normal to me. But when it comes to recalling information or explaining things he just freezes.

 

I'm just sitting here wanting to cry - not really sure why. I don't know what to think but I feel certain he has some kind of disability - I just have no idea what it is. I feel so bad for him. I feel so frustrated about the anesthesia, but he would have died without the surgery. I don't know what to do next.

 

Oh my gosh, this is my son too.

He's always been about 2-3 years behind. He had surgery at 3 for an undescended testicle. After that, he was "different." I'm crying with you.

Does your kid has sensory issues too?

[Kathleen in VA]

Thanks, everyone, for the hugs and encouragement.

 

Denise, I have not had him tested. I wouldn't even know who to go to for that. I don't want to have anything to do with the public school system so that's out. Any ideas?

 

Mergath - I did think of the repeated doses of anesthesia being mentioned, but I also wonder if the fact that it took so long for him to regain consciousness may be a part of his problem - like perhaps they gave him too much. I seem to recall that they said giving infants anesthesia was tricky because they (the nurse anesthetist) didn't really know exactly how much to give him.

 

The main thing I guess is that I don't know how to help him. I was just at the "struggling learners" section of the HSLDA website and he doesn't fit any of the categories they have. He seems to have no trouble focusing. He gathers his school stuff and does everything in order - it's just usually all wrong and has to be redone while I sit with him. He's not hyperactive. He hears fine. He can see fine.

 

He can read well, he likes to read. He has a little electronic dictionary his aunt sent him for Christmas a few years ago and he carries it everywhere. He pulls it out about ten times a day to look up words he hears in conversations, in his school reading, in movies, etc. He loves words and finding out about them.

 

Here's a sampling of how a lesson might go on any given day:

 

He's reading Mere Christianity for Notgrass History (consider that he is 15 and is doing 9th grade curriculum which I think is a little behind the "normal" schedule - I was 13/14 in 9th grade). One of his questions was something along the lines of "What is one option Lewis does not allow people to have about Jesus?" Well, I haven't read the book recently so I found a book review online that explained what Lewis was talking about here. He was talking about the idea that people do not have the option of calling Jesus a "good man" or "good teacher" because He claimed to be the Son of God, equal with the Father. Lewis said that Jesus was either telling the truth, or He was lying (which would make him a liar and not a good man), or he was delusional - a lunatic (which would also eliminate "good man" from the options).

 

Well ds could not come up with any of this on his own. So after waiting for a while for him to come up with an answer, I explained it to him - very plainly. Then I asked him to explain it to me. I tried having him role play and I played the part of a person who says Jesus is a good man. He still did not know where to start. I dictated the whole thing to him and had him write it on the board - one sentence for each idea - nothing complicated. Then I had him study the board for about ten minutes and told him to think of how to say it, not necessarily using the same exact words, just conveying the same thoughts. He finally was able to eek out the basic idea and I had him write it down in his notebook. I have to say I was completely exhausted when we were through and I think he probably was too (this whole exchange took about an hour). There are 7 questions about this book and they are all meant to be answered in one day for one lesson. He has answered 4 and it has taken us two days so far. I didn't go on because I think one or both of us would have broken down and cried if I had.

 

All his school is like this. Math, science, grammar, history, everything. I just wish I knew what I could do to help him learn.

[ElizaG]

:grouphug: Not sure if this will help, but according to the article, it's not clear whether or not the anesthesia itself actually caused these children's learning problems.

"One main question is whether the medical conditions for which the children need surgery -- and not the anesthesia during the surgery -- is responsible for the learning disability.

 

The study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, took into account a child's health and other risk factors for learning disabilities, but it was not designed to definitively determine whether general anesthesia or a medical condition caused the cognitive problems."

Many types of congenital problems, including the tendency to develop pyloric stenosis, can be part of a syndrome that includes learning disabilities. Sometimes these are mild and hard to identify. Most of them probably haven't even been named yet.

 

One of my children went under general anesthesia several times before age 1. But there's no way we'd be able to tell the difference between any effects of the anesthesia, and the effects of the (poorly understood) underlying condition that caused the problems that made those procedures necessary.

 

I wish you and your son the best in dealing with the challenges you've mentioned. :grouphug:

[LauraGB]

Oh Kathleen! You are a da*n good mom - you made the decisions you needed to make to help your son when he needed it. Please don't beat yourself up; all moms are faced with making big decisions for their children's well being - we do what needs to be done when it needs to be done to the very, absolute best of our abilities and knowledge. Always. :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

[Embassy]

Denise, I have not had him tested. I wouldn't even know who to go to for that. I don't want to have anything to do with the public school system so that's out. Any ideas?

 

 

:grouphug::grouphug: Maybe try a speech-language pathologist. Call one and describe your son's difficulties and ask how they might be able to help.

 

 

My son had anesthesia at age 2 and 3. Emotionally the first one impacted him greatly and it took nearly a year for him to get back to normal. The second one went well, but I had the hospital psychologist get involved to make sure we didn't have a repeat. My little girl is having anesthesia tomorrow morning. I've put her non-life threatening procedure off for 2 years, but the situation that necessitates the surgery is no longer in a holding pattern - it is getting worse so I made the decision to go ahead.

[FO4UR]

:grouphug:

 

I understand those feelings. My oldest has asthma/allergies/eczema...it's a genetic predisposition, but there are some environmental things I thought better about once he started presenting major symptoms...and my youngest 2 dc don't have a hint of it.

 

We can never know the exact causes of some things...and it doesn't matter. What matters is how we move forward.

 

Your ds sounds like a wonderful (patient! hard working!) young man. Perseverence through trials grows fruit...he's growing a plentiful harvest early and that will serve him well. :001_smile:

[Nakia]

Your children are blessed to have you. I'm sorry you are hurting. :grouphug:

[J-rap]

You made the best possible decision for your son. Reading about the study, keep in mind: "The link appears to hold only for general anesthesia ... after repeated use."

[Mommy22alyns]

:grouphug:

[linguistmama]

:grouphug:

[seraphina]

:grouphug:

 

You made the only choice there was you can't beat yourself up.

 

I hadn't seen this report. My ds (13) had emergency surgery when he was 6 months old to remove a penny lodged in his esophagus. When he was 4 he had a gelastic seizure and was put under for a few procedures.

 

He is my only child that struggles academically. But he also has asperger's and a mood disorder.

 

As a parent we always wonder what we could have done differently but I like to tell myself that everything that has happened has led me to where I am and that's exactly where I want to be.

 

:grouphug: again. It sounds like you are a wonderful parent and he is happy to have you.

[Quad Shot Academy]

If it makes you feel any better, mine with a LD did not have any anesthesia, while one of my others went under 4 times before 2 and he is very smart. 3 of the times was for over an hour. I think like a PP said, it is part of what was wrong in the first place. :grouphug:

Edited October 4, 2011 by Quad Shot Academy

[Twigs]

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

[Quiver0f10]

:grouphug: I understand. My 12 yo has LD and sounds similar to your son except mine also has dyslexia. He had surgery at 4 days for Hirschsprung's disease. I have wondered before if the surgery had something to do with it. However, I know the surgery was the only option.

 

You made the best decision for your son and you are a good mom!

Edited October 4, 2011 by Quiver0f10

[Big Buckin' Longhorn]

My son had major surgery only moments after he was born (8 weeks premie). He has since had probably 20 operations, many of them before he turned two. He needed those operations.

 

He does have some learning delays, but he IS ALIVE. He is worth every single extra minute, hour, day, week, month or year it took for him to catch on. He's still "different," luckily in my family, different is our favorite flavor.

 

Don't feel guilty. We all do the very best we can.

Edited October 4, 2011 by TejasMamacita

[Kathleen in VA]

Thanks again, everyone. I appreciate your kind reassurances that I did the best I could. As with all things, I know I need to just trust God with the whole situation. Thanks for listening.:)

[texasmama]

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

 

Kathleen, I hope you are able, in time, to come to understand this study and information in the context of a life-saving operation for your son.

 

I have a son with some neurological differences, and I have wracked my brain for years (off and on), trying to determine what I may have inadvertently done to contribute or cause his issues. I have second guessed myself on allowing an induction and on having tubes put in his ears at 18 months. However, I know in my gut that he was born this way. The cause will never be known. I also have a child born with bilateral clubfoot and, for a time, I focused on the migraine meds I took during those early days of pregnancy, prior to finding out I was pregnant. I've since dismissed that as a cause and again, decided that I will not ever know what caused her birth defect.

 

My heart goes out to you as a mother. I know the heartache of second guessing in light of new information. You and I (and other moms on this thread) all made the best decisions we could at the time with the information we had. Grace will need to cover the rest.:grouphug:

[texasmama]

Don't cry, everything going to be OK.

 

 

One to one coaching

 

reported

[Mommyof4ks]

Thanks again, everyone. I appreciate your kind reassurances that I did the best I could. As with all things, I know I need to just trust God with the whole situation. Thanks for listening.:)

 

Trusting God is difficult sometimes, but you He was there when your son needed the surgery and gave the docs wisdom to discover the need and the medical knowledge to treat the condition. You made the right decision and your son is blessed to have you as him mom.

 

My youngest son had leukemia, and he was put under over 25 times for various procedures, and every time I had to read 'may cause brain damage or death' and sign that paper it scared me. That combined with 3 years of chemotherapy does not seem to affected his learning at all. My middle child OTOH has never had surgery or other major health concerns, and he has multiple LDs that greatly affect his ability to learn and retain information. There are so many unknowns.

[Kathleen in VA]

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

 

Kathleen, I hope you are able, in time, to come to understand this study and information in the context of a life-saving operation for your son.

 

I have a son with some neurological differences, and I have wracked my brain for years (off and on), trying to determine what I may have inadvertently done to contribute or cause his issues. I have second guessed myself on allowing an induction and on having tubes put in his ears at 18 months. However, I know in my gut that he was born this way. The cause will never be known. I also have a child born with bilateral clubfoot and, for a time, I focused on the migraine meds I took during those early days of pregnancy, prior to finding out I was pregnant. I've since dismissed that as a cause and again, decided that I will not ever know what caused her birth defect.

 

My heart goes out to you as a mother. I know the heartache of second guessing in light of new information. You and I (and other moms on this thread) all made the best decisions we could at the time with the information we had. Grace will need to cover the rest.:grouphug:

 

Thanks, Carol. I really feel for all the moms who have posted about their own self-doubts. It's agonizing at times and you are right (as were they) that we made the best decision we could at the time. I need to constantly remember your last line - grace will cover the rest. I also like TejasMamacita's phrase - Different is our favorite flavor.:)

[Teachin'Mine]

:grouphug:

 

As has been said, you've done everything a loving mother would do. :grouphug:

God has a plan for him. Help him to explore any interests which might

lead to a career. There are so many people with all kinds of learning

disabilities leading very full lives, supporting their families, etc.. I have

to say this quietly here, but memorizing history and such isn't crucial for

success in life.

[texasmama]

Thanks, Carol. I really feel for all the moms who have posted about their own self-doubts. It's agonizing at times and you are right (as were they) that we made the best decision we could at the time. I need to constantly remember your last line - grace will cover the rest. I also like TejasMamacita's phrase - Different is our favorite flavor.:)

 

I like that, too.:grouphug: I think that a large part of the struggle with issues like this is that we wonder if we have some responsibility, which would assume some amount of control, even in retrospect. The alternative is the more difficult option of not being able to control these things at all.

 

I am choosing to believe that mistakes were not made in the forming of my children. They are exactly who God created them to be. We all have something "different", after all. Some peoples' differences are just more evident...but we all have them.

[Jen in PA]

:grouphug:

[OnTheBrink]

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

[silliness7]

:grouphug::grouphug:

 

I'm sorry you're going through this.

[Tammyla]

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

[Heather in Neverland]

:grouphug::grouphug:

[silliness7]

My 3rd son has learning issues. I don't know what they all are. He did have some vision therapy. I cannot remember all of the diagnoses the dr. passed out but he's doing better now. We're off for his well-child check and I'll be talking to the doc about ADHD.

 

Anyway, when he was about 8mos. old he and I were laying on the bed nursing. My recently potty trained 2yo came to me to get help buttoning his pants. When I reached over to help him my baby fell off the bed straight on the top of his head. Scary, scary, scary!!!! It took him a minute to scream. It felt like an eternity. I just felt sure he broke his neck or something. Well he screamed and didn't have any bumps. I watched him carefully all day and he seemed fine. In hindsight mabye I should have taken him to the doc. But really what could they have done?

 

But when I think about his learning issues I will always wonder if it was that blow to the head when he was a baby. And that was so incredibly my fault. :crying::crying:

 

Hang in there momma!!!

[simka2]

Many hugs! You are a great mom. Someties I spend quite a bit of time on the special needs board. They have great advice. :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

[merry gardens]

Kathleen, thank you for providing that article. :grouphug:

 

One of my children has similar struggles. I often feel like a failure as his mother and teacher. :grouphug:

[Jennifer3141]

Kathleen, here's the problem with that study and why a lot of doctors are questioning it:

 

It's a study about anesthesia on REPEATED procedures. In other words, the children who had ONE procedure weren't studied. Even this article states that:

 

 

Researchers from the

Mayo Clinic compared the medical and school records of 350 kids born in Rochester, Minn., who had undergone repeated procedures requiring general anesthesia before the age of two with 700 children who had not had anesthesia.

 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/10/03/anesthesia-risk-for-kids-highlighted-in-new-study/#ixzz1ZpBJXWnz

Secondly, you can take all the statistics about babies who need surgery into account that you want but we still aren't that great at predicting pediatric outcomes. It is WAY esier to accurately predict how a 98 year old is going do in surgery than a two year old. That's the nature of pediatric medicine. Sometimes kids come back from the brink when you've got their grave half dug and sometimes seemingly perfect healthy kids just drop dead. They're the most variable patient base out there.

So what they studied is 350 children whose doctors had determined that they needed multipe surgeries for whatever issues/diseases/defects/etc. and determined that those kids are more likely to have learning disabilites later in life. Well, DUH. I hope we have a medical system where we don't go hacking into two year olds unless they actually NEED it.

It would be interesting to me to find out what the Mayo Clinic considered the margin of error on this study. How many kids were misdiagnosed prior to their surgery/ies and did the projected outcome change for them while in the study? How many surgical errors were there? And where's the control group (which ethically cannot exist by its very nature)? How did they determine it was the anesthesia? Maybe it's the higher level of oxygen that you breathe under anesthesia. Maybe it's off gasing from the plastic clips on the medical gowns...

This had to be a study with a high margin of error though.

Mayo Clinic is an excellent hospital system but even they have their own biases.

I think this is one of those studies that migyht potentially cause people to rethink surgical options for babies OR it's going to be one of those studies that just kind of drops off the radar in 90 days.

My DS had general anestheia when he was under the age of two due to dental issues. Kathleen, we made the best decision we could at the time with the information we were given. And in 6 months, some other hospital will come out with a study that anesthesia improves brain function in lab rats. Take these studies with a serious grain of salt - like that on an entire semi truckload of Lay's potato chips (because they have no gluten or soy! :D )

 

 

[Xanadu]

Your son sounds just like my 12 yo son. (the learning example you shared sounds like our history lesson yesterday...and he also loves history....lol) He also has severe limitations in his expressive language skills.

 

After 4 years with an IEP (he started with one at age 3 for language delays) IQ testing, which is mandatory in our state by 2nd grade level for all students, showed him to be exceptionally gifted. (He went from a restrictive classroom environment to a full day gifted school....we are now homeschooling because he really needs a combo of the 2 and the district couldn't provide it)

 

His Neuropsychologist explained it this way....Kids with learning problems like this have trouble getting information in (receptive), they have even a harder time getting it out (expressive) but what happens to that information once it is inside their head (when they do manage to absorb some of it) is amazing.

 

To meet my son you wouldn't even know he has a problem. He looks like your normal skateboard obsessed pre-teen, and doesn't come across "gifted" in conversation (normally). But he has almost a 40 point difference between verbal and nonverbal skills. He compensates for one with the other and comes across normal in any social/educational setting. He can barely write and can't always respond to a question quickly (he really has to form his thoughts before he speaks..otherwise the sentence is twisted), but 2 weeks later he will amaze me by having an indepth discussion with a family friend about chemical engineering or renewable energy options. (recent examples) He can't memorize his multiplication tables, but he can do advance geometry and algebraic formulas, understands physics (I'm totally lost) and get nuance in literature (audiobooks) that I miss......but again don't ask him what 6x8 is....*sigh*

 

Its my belief that all children who suffer with learning disabilities are 2E in some way.....gifted in some other area to compensate for their exceptionalities. Just like visually impared individuals tend to have other senses that are enhanced, I think kids who struggle with learning also develop additional skills and abilities. Don't worry too much about your son...he might surprise you and definitely don't blame yourself. There are days I want to just bang my head on the wall.....but I know if I just keep presenting the material eventually a little will stick...and that's when it gets exciting......:grouphug:

Edited October 4, 2011 by Xanadu

[Kathleen in VA]

Your son sounds just like my 12 yo son. (the learning example you shared sounds like our history lesson yesterday...and he also loves history....lol) He also has severe limitations in his expressive language skills.

 

After 4 years with an IEP (he started with one at age 3 for language delays) IQ testing, which is mandatory in our state by 2nd grade level for all students, showed him to be exceptionally gifted. (He went from a restrictive classroom environment to a full day gifted school....we are now homeschooling because he really needs a combo of the 2 and the district couldn't provide it)

 

His Neuropsychologist explained it this way....Kids with learning problems like this have trouble getting information in (receptive), they have even a harder time getting it out (expressive) but what happens to that information once it is inside their head (when they do manage to absorb some of it) is amazing.

 

To meet my son you wouldn't even know he has a problem. He looks like your normal skateboard obsessed pre-teen, and doesn't come across "gifted" in conversation (normally). But he has almost a 40 point difference between verbal and nonverbal skills. He compensates for one with the other and comes across normal in any social/educational setting. He can barely write and can't always respond to a question quickly (he really has to form his thoughts before he speaks..otherwise the sentence is twisted), but 2 weeks later he will amaze me by having an indepth discussion with a family friend about chemical engineering or renewable energy options. (recent examples) He can't memorize his multiplication tables, but he can do advance geometry and algebraic formulas, understands physics (I'm totally lost) and get nuance in literature (audiobooks) that I miss......but again don't ask him what 6x8 is....*sigh*

 

Its my belief that all children who suffer with learning disabilities are 2E in some way.....gifted in some other area to compensate for their exceptionalities. Just like visually impared individuals tend to have other senses that are enhanced, I think kids who struggle with learning also develop additional skills and abilities. Don't worry too much about your son...he might surprise you and definitely don't blame yourself. There are days I want to just bang my head on the wall.....but I know if I just keep presenting the material eventually a little will stick...and that's when it gets exciting......:grouphug:

 

Thank you for this. It was very encouraging.:)

[Kathleen in VA]

Kathleen, here's the problem with that study and why a lot of doctors are questioning it:

 

It's a study about anesthesia on REPEATED procedures. In other words, the children who had ONE procedure weren't studied. Even this article states that:

 

 

Researchers from the

Mayo Clinic compared the medical and school records of 350 kids born in Rochester, Minn., who had undergone repeated procedures requiring general anesthesia before the age of two with 700 children who had not had anesthesia.

 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/10/03/anesthesia-risk-for-kids-highlighted-in-new-study/#ixzz1ZpBJXWnz

 

Secondly, you can take all the statistics about babies who need surgery into account that you want but we still aren't that great at predicting pediatric outcomes. It is WAY esier to accurately predict how a 98 year old is going do in surgery than a two year old. That's the nature of pediatric medicine. Sometimes kids come back from the brink when you've got their grave half dug and sometimes seemingly perfect healthy kids just drop dead. They're the most variable patient base out there.

 

So what they studied is 350 children whose doctors had determined that they needed multipe surgeries for whatever issues/diseases/defects/etc. and determined that those kids are more likely to have learning disabilites later in life. Well, DUH. I hope we have a medical system where we don't go hacking into two year olds unless they actually NEED it.

 

It would be interesting to me to find out what the Mayo Clinic considered the margin of error on this study. How many kids were misdiagnosed prior to their surgery/ies and did the projected outcome change for them while in the study? How many surgical errors were there? And where's the control group (which ethically cannot exist by its very nature)? How did they determine it was the anesthesia? Maybe it's the higher level of oxygen that you breathe under anesthesia. Maybe it's off gasing from the plastic clips on the medical gowns...

This had to be a study with a high margin of error though.

 

Mayo Clinic is an excellent hospital system but even they have their own biases.

 

I think this is one of those studies that migyht potentially cause people to rethink surgical options for babies OR it's going to be one of those studies that just kind of drops off the radar in 90 days.

 

My DS had general anestheia when he was under the age of two due to dental issues. Kathleen, we made the best decision we could at the time with the information we were given. And in 6 months, some other hospital will come out with a study that anesthesia improves brain function in lab rats. Take these studies with a serious grain of salt - like that on an entire semi truckload of Lay's potato chips (because they have no gluten or soy! :D )

 

 

 

 

 

Very interesting - thanks for the additional info. I also wonder if the fact that he barely kept any of his food down for the first two weeks of his life harmed his brain. The nature of pyloric stenosis is that the baby does not digest any of his food. It seems logical that would play into his struggles as well.

[Jennifer3141]

Very interesting - thanks for the additional info. I also wonder if the fact that he barely kept any of his food down for the first two weeks of his life harmed his brain. The nature of pyloric stenosis is that the baby does not digest any of his food. It seems logical that would play into his struggles as well.

 

For what it is worth Kathleen, I think you are a wonderful, thoughful mother. And your son came to YOU for a reason. :grouphug:

[Big Buckin' Longhorn]

You know, I've always been of the opinion that Extra Special Moms were given Extra Special Babies with extra-ordinary circumstances for a reason.

 

When I had my Extra Special Son, I was on the fast track to absolutely nowhere. He sobered me up, matured me, and gave my entire life a sense of purpose. I learned at a very youg age (20) to question both authority and the status quo. (And not just in a rebelious way, LOL) Those character traits have given me the courage to homeschool rather than institutionalize my son. My stubborn nature helped us survive 5 years of single-parenthood.

 

I don't know what is in either of our futures, but I know the sum of these experiences will make me better able to handle whatever comes my way. I know for a fact that if I could survive 6 months of my 3 pound baby in the ICU, then I can survive anything.

[jennsmile]

My dh had multiple surgeries as a kid. He graduated from Berkley was a BA and BYU with a M. ED. I am sure you child is fine. We all have our strengths and weaknesses.

 

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: