in drew's words - blood- cool

drew met with his new gi dr last week and she was AMAZING.. she wants to run some tests to see if we can figure this weight stuff out. she wanted to re-do the blood work because it was all 2 years old. so off drew and i went to get his blood drawn. poor kid had to fast for the test and he was so hungry. he did super awesome. when the lady started the draw he got excited to see his blood- hopefully we won't have to wait weeks and weeks to hear something. we are also re-doing the stool sample and she wanted to do a lactose tolerance test..  we did that test on tues and it was an experience-

he had to have a special dinner the night before of plain chicken, plain rice and water. he ate like 3 bites of it and refused the rest. poor kid was so hungry and thirsty. so the test involved blowing air into a bag to test the hydrogen amounts. so there was the initial blow and then you drink this sugary drink and they have you blow into the bag every 10-15 minutes. anything over a 5 is negative. drew was blowing a 0 for about 2 hours. the nurse was awesome and actually talked to me about this test and even tried to see if she could get a sneak peek at his blood work but we had that done somewhere else. i really appreciated her alot. it felt good to have someone else in the medical word acknowledge that something seems off. anywho... a 0 is bad- it means he has no hydrogen.. just when she thought she had it figured out drew blew a 2 then another 0 . she was baffled.. then we had to drink another drink that was more concentrated and blow 4 more times. he blew a 4, then a 2 and then finally a 16. we could leave. drew was so happy to leave that hospital.

i was so happy we did not have to drive downtown for the test and that the hospital is so wonderful. everyone that walked by was friendly to drew and that made me happy. he gets so shy around new people and it makes me laugh cause that is not how he is once you know him.. so for now that test was negative and on to the next step.

the time drew gained no weight

you read that title correct- in the past 3 1/2 months drew has gained 0 weight but grown in height causing his bmi to plummet. we had our follow up appt with the nutritionist and originally i was not going but then i wanted to see if he had gained any weight on their scales since they have the fancy scale and the growth charts so off we went. at the last appt i was totally bugged by both the dr and the nutritionist. they were both happy about his weight gain (as was i) but the dr totally gave us about 2 minutes and didn't even look at up at drew during his moment in the room. this bugged the crap out of me. i know that looking at drew you can see he is small but other than his size he is a healthy happy guy. the problem i have is that i feel like something is causing him to not gain the weight and i want to find out the reason why. its one of those things that keep me up at night- so anywho- i went to this appt and was shocked that he had gained NO weight. the nutritionist was shocked as well. you see we calculated that drew eats on average between 18oo-2200 calories in a day. with that many calories he should gain weight and he is not. so... we are sort of at square one again- we need to see a gi but i was upset with the dr and now i have to find a new one that will be willing to find the cause with me. i am grateful that drew is otherwise a healthy kid but i worry that his body is not getting the nutrients it needs to grow properly. so heaven help me to find a dr who wants to figure this out. thats the news on drew.bear and his weight gain battle.

counting calories

so we met with a nutritionist on monday to talk about mr. drew.bear. we learned two things... drew eats all the right amounts of foods from the right food groups and he eats a lot. he has gained weight since last april to now but his body mass index is still under the 10% mark. so we need to pump him up. the goal is to get him to eat more calories for the next 6 weeks and see if that makes a difference. now do you realize how fun it is to pay attention to how many calories are in everything you eat or make... NOT FUN.. soon after my birthday diet time will come..