Monday, February 7, 2011

Medical History

Every time you see a new doctor you have the forms. The form I dread is the family medical history form. For several of my children I can write very little.
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For Joselin I do know that her grandmother was blind....I don't know why. I know that her mother was living and that she was very short......I have pictures so Joselin can see where she got some of her looks from. We met her in Guatemala but we didn't get much medical history. About the only thing we were told was that Joselin had an older sister who died from cancer. That was it: not what type of cancer, how old she was or anything else. Just she died of cancer.
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So, when I got the results that Joselin had abnormal results on her pap smear it concerned me. When our doctor sent a referral for a gyn doctor to determine if a biopsy is necessary it scared me. I don't know if any women in her biological family have had any of these types of problems. All I do know is that she had an older sister who died from cancer. Not much to go by. I just hope that the results were wrong.
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With Anthony and Larissa I know just a little more. The only reason I know a little more is because their case went on for so many years and we were able to see what medical issues the parents had. I also sat across from their mom on many visitation days trying to get Larissa comfortable before the visits and talked with their mom. Little bits of information were shared.
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Interesting to me is that they have a half brother with nocturnal seizures similar to Larissa. Anthony and this brother also share the inability to do math....I wonder if math abilities are genetic. I do know that with Anthony and Larissa the parents were asked for medical information, they didn't give any.
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I wonder how many folks out there are unable to fill out the family history portions of their medical forms. I wonder how many make it up instead of writing "unknown".
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Just another little challenge in the world of adoption.

1 comment:

  1. If people make it up, they must not have enough other things to do. While I'm sad that my kids- 3 now, 2 more soon-will never know their medical history, with as many forms as I have to fill out X amount of times, I couldn't imagine having enough desire to make extra work for myself and make up something else when "unknown" is accurate. I'm too busy filling out blanks for the things I do know :)

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