Hi all
I wondered if anyone has been in this situation and could tell me what the outcome was? I will try and get hold of the paediatrician/endocrinologist but I don't know how easy that'll be currently! Would just like to know if I'm worrying unnecessarily.
DS2 is 11. He was diagnosed with a brain tumour at 5 and had chemotherapy. The tumour affects his optic nerves and has caused a bit of damage to his hypothalamus.
Just before he turned 9 we ( us and hospital ) noticed he had started puberty. This isn't unusual in children with his type of tumour. Hospital said not to delay puberty, even though it was classed as early, as DS was a tall boy and destined to be tall ( always between 91st-98th centile) so it wouldn't be an issue if he lost a small amount of adult height.
My concern now is he's 11 (year 6) 5 foot 5, has huge feet ( 9 ) and has now started sprouting under arm hair. He's grown considerably in the last year - 5 inches - with 2 inches since Christmas. The underarm hair shocked me, so I researched it and it appears that's stage 4 of 5 of puberty!
My concerns are - he's got this underarm hair , but having researched puberty it appears he should have had other things appear before that? So his voice hasn't dropped, he isn't looking muscular. He still looks like a hairy man in a little boys body!!
Is that a problem? I only have his 16 year old brother to compare him to, who did everything as you'd expect ( but doesn't have a tumour to cause problems!)
I also wonder about height?! If he's at stage 4 of 5 then has he almost finished growing?! He'd be gutted about that if I'm honest, he's always been tall as I said - and his doctors said they had expected him to still reach 6foot. Is that realistic? As I said , he's 5 foot 5 now. I'm 5ft 7, his Dad is 6ft and his 16 year old brother is 6ft 2
Have any of you seen your DS go into early puberty and still come out at at least average height?