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The King Has An MRI Today

The king has an MRI today. 
Wed 8:43am — The king has an MRI today.  We’re at the hospital right now. It’s not because of anything serious (we hope).  It’s been scheduled for a few weeks. 
It has to do with his hypothyroidism and his advanced / precocious puberty. (Two things I don’t write about much on the FB page / blog). 
They want to make sure that he doesn’t have a pituitary issue. 
The king’s done a few MRIs in the past…
But because of his autism and epilepsy they are a lot more complicated than the typical kid. 
They need to take about 45 minutes worth of “pictures”. 
Because he can’t stay still for more than 2 minutes he has to go under general anesthesia to get the MRI. 
But because he has the VNS device implanted for his seizures and that’s based on metals and magnets it’s a bit more complicated. 
There’s only a few hospitals that do MRIs on VNS patients. And even fewer that do MRIs on VNS patients that can’t talk and tell them if something feels weird. 
So we are at a big hospital in Manhattan. 
And they turn off the VNS device during the MRI and they use a special MRI machine. 
I just left him. I was in the room with him when the administered the first dose of anesthesia via a mask over his mouth.
I’ve always played this part during previous anesthesia times since wifey doesn’t want to see it…
He always surprises us and does great in hospital settings! 
Today, so far he’s done great. He’s strong and fought the mask a bit, and held his breath a bit…but I recited one of his fav books “chicka chicka boom boom” over and over and that calmed him down until he fell into an immediate deep sleep in my arms. 
Now we have to wait an hour until they call us in. 
While he’s in recovery, but still asleep they are gonna bring an xray machine up and get a pic of one of his wrists to get a bone age test done to see how advanced his puberty really is. 
We’ve been told he’s in stage 4 puberty…4 out of 5 stages. He’s 11 but docs have estimated that he’s got the development of a 14-15 year old. 
Many typical kids take meds to slow the puberty down. 
But if the results of the MRI show & X-ray no scary reason for his advanced puberty we are just gonna leave it alone. 
When asked what’s the worst that can happen, docs talk about emotional problems with kids going thru puberty before their peers… Kyle wouldn’t have that problem. 
The only other problem is that he might end up being short. When you go thru puberty quickly you stop growing earlier. 
Our thoughts?
He’s already 5′ 1″ maybe a kid like Kyle being short adult isn’t the worst thing in the world…especially for me & wifey as he gets older and stronger. 
Anyway we are in the waiting room now waiting for the call that he is done. 
Please send positive vibes. 
Thanks,
AD

Written by

Frank Campagna

I’m a 48 year old neurotypical dad with a 14 year old son with severe, non-verbal autism & epilepsy. I created this blog to rant about autism & epilepsy while celebrating my son who I affectionately call “the king” :-).


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10 People Replies to “The King Has An MRI Today”

  1. Sending good vibes your way. You post made me wonder about our daughter – she matured very early too – but no doctor ever said it was a problem. The most difficult thing for her, and this is a girl thing, was getting unwanted attention from boys. Now that she is 15 and 6 feet tall she just loves standing next to me who is only 5'4"

    I will keep you all in my prayers.

  2. Hope everything went well!

  3. I love your blog. I have a 5-year-old, nonverbal, with autism and epilepsy. He had his VNS implanted over the summer, which was how I found your blog; searching for VNS stories. He also has a new habit of popping his jaw constantly, which reminds me of the way your son holds his breath. My question is simple. Just thought about it when you talked about precocious puberty, which I in fact went through. I am short too! But anyway, do you have to shave your son's facial hair yet? And how do you do it? I hope in the years to come my son would get used to people doing things to his head, but at this point I can't imagine shaving him a couple times a week at least. He can't stand getting his haircut.

    Good luck with the special MRI and hope the results are favorable.

  4. Anonymous

    I think early puberty is genetic!

  5. Becky Hileman

    Praying for The King and for you and wifey! Been through this with our ASD Son and it never gets easier! He will do fantastic and it sounds like he is in great hands! Love and Prayers from Ohio! ♡

  6. Thinking of you all! Best of luck.

  7. Anonymous

    Good luck. Thinking of you all.

  8. Anonymous

    Good Luck AD. Thinking of Kyle .

  9. Good luck kyle you will do great, xtra popcorn today

  10. Hospital appointments are always tough. Thinking about you all and hope it goes the best it can under the circumstances.

    Interesting posting about the development and being shorter issue. Our daughter developed at 11 years old (much to our shock) and at a recent health check, they seemed concerned that she had stopped growing. I didn't give it another thought. So what if she is smaller than whatever they deem the average person to be. In the grand scheme of things, there are bigger things to stress about.