What a day.

First, the good news:

My boss’s tumor was completely resected, and he is still talking, texting, moving, giving orders, and making jokes. Given where the tumor was in his brain, this is a huge relief. We are so thankful for the prayers of all the saints, the power of God, and the technology that was used in the surgery.

We got Addie’s bone age back. Indeed, she is not four years old. Actually, interestingly, her bone age was the same as Palmer’s. If you’ve ever spent time with them, you know there are years difference between them developmentally.  There is 18 months of error on either side, so there’s a big margin. So she too could technically also be as young as 4 1/2 or as old as 8 1/2. So we are choosing to keep their ages as they have told us: age 6 for Addie, and age 8 for Palmer.

(Grab your Pepto and your Tylenol.)

Now, the not-so-good news:

I had called our attorney last week about changing their birthdates, and she finally had a chance to call me back today. She said Immigration will no longer allow changes in birthdates, because of new anti-terrorism laws, and sent me the documentation from Immigration to prove it. She said we CAN change it at the State level, but that Immigration won’t recognize it. Having two different birthdates, one at the state level, and one at the federal level is not seen favorably by any government agency. This will make it nearly impossible, if not impossible, to get passports, citizenship, drivers’ licenses, voters’ registration cards, etc. She said the decision to change their birthdates has serious ramifications.

Because children who are internationally adopted go through puberty early, having them at non-age-appropriate grade levels is not good. We’re back to them going through puberty in first and second grades.

We’re hoping that the school system will take the doctor’s word for it, but not require us to go through the process of officially changing their birthdates. We shall see.

The bigger concern came from the x-rays Addie had to prove she doesn’t have tuberculosis and the one used to do her bone age. We found out this evening that Addie Rose has a very enlarged heart, and needs an echocardiogram at Vanderbilt as soon as possible. Tomorrow afternoon, actually. And in addition to having calcium-deficient bones, she has significantly enlarged bone marrow. This means that hematology/oncology has to get involved, in addition to pediatric cardiology. The two could be related, which would not be good.

The news about Addie Rose is difficult as a parent, and as a medical professional. Still, we don’t know exactly what all of this means until a whole plethora of doctors weigh in on their thoughts. We are also headed to the ENT tomorrow to have Addie evaluated for hearing loss, as we try to figure out the cause of her developmental delays.

I think we could use a little more of the good news, don’t you think?