In the last post, I spoke about how Turner's had affected my life from diagnosis to about age 10. As you may have gathered, as I have gotten older it has affected me in different ways. This post may contain some information that gets a little personal for people: but I want to share it anyway, because when I was growing up I wish someone had shared this information with me.
Most people know that when you are in either fifth or sixth grade, your school nurse will show the boys a certain video, and the girls a certain video. My school nurse showed us the videos at the end of the fifth grade year. After seeing these videos, most of us go home to mom and dad with a ton of questions. My parents didn't quite know how to answer these specific questions for me.For those of you who don't know, girls with Turner's syndrome hardly ever go through puberty naturally. Most girls with Turner's have to have some sort of Hormone Replacement Therapy(HRT). My parents decided along with my doctors that we should wait as long as possible to see if I would start puberty on my own before starting me on an HRT.
While we were waiting to see what mother nature had in store for me, my pediatrician wanted to run a couple more tests to see if anything else that typically happens to girls with Turner's was going on with me. The first thing he wanted to check was if my growth platelets had started "capping off". The reason for this test was because if possible he wanted to start me on growth hormone therapy. Unfortunately for me, my growth platelets were too far capped to do the therapy. Some of you have probably been doing research and are having mixed feelings about growth hormones. Those mixed feelings are very understandable. From the research i've looked at, it seems as if the hormone therapy does work, but only if you start it early enough.
The second test that my pediatrician wanted to do was just an ultrasound of my kidneys to make sure I didn't have any abnormalities in my kidneys(Horseshoe kidney). With that test we were in luck, I didn't have any issues.
As we were kind of waiting for mother nature to take it's course as far as puberty goes, I started noticing all my freinds one by one starting puberty way before me. Some people might be asking " what's the big deal? It sucks being a girl during that part of the month!", which normally I agree with. When I was a teenager though, it was this one more thing that made me totally feel left out. First, I was always the smallest in my class, I was known as the teacher's pet, now this? I felt like a total outcast. I just wanted one things to go "normal" for me. Then when I turned about 14, since mother nature hadn't taken it's course, I was put on a form of Hormone Replacement Therapy. For me, my pediatrician started me on premarin to get my body to begin my cycles, I was simultaneously starting birth control for the estrogen replacement to continue having my cycles. As you can probably guess, my dad wsn't too happy with his 14yr old daughter being on birth control......mom took care of that.
Between not starting puberty on time and always being the smallest, I have never quite felt my age. Let me tell you, it's not always fun. For example, my best freind and I, along with her fiance walked into a sotre once, mind you I am the oldest out of the three of us, the clerk ended up assumimg I was the daughter of my best freind and her fiance. If you were to talk to me face to face though, you would probably say that I am quite mature and intelligent beyond my years. The joke around the house when I was growing up was that I was something like thirteen going on thirty.
One thing I want everyone who reads this to remember, that despite all these struggles that I've gone through with the Turner's, I always stay true to who I am and not let anyone bend me. Sure the short jokes and comments about my height and comments on how young I look can get to me some days, but for the most part I just let the haters keep hating and do my own thing. I do my best to remember that the comments and jokes usually come from people who know nothing about my situation and they usually don't mean to be rude, they are just curious.
Stay Tuned For Part III.......
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