No no no I don't want to ever have to make decisions like that

[emkana]

Ds has dwarfism.

Am currently reading a debate on a yahoo group of parents of children with dwarfism - about limb lengthening surgery.

One day that will be something that I will have to think about very carefully, and I hate the thought of that already.

is it possible to wait until he can have input into whether or not he wants it, em?

that BBC series featuring various children with different special needs had a boy with dwarfism.

the time had come for them to the face the decision, but the boy was old enough by then to be able to meet others with his condition who had/hadn't had the procedure and discuss how they felt about it.

Yes I do plan to wait until he's older but then it also upsets me that I will ahve to burden him with such a monumental decision when still quite young.

yes, IIRC, the boy featured in teh series was about 10 years old and they were going to need to decide soon.

BUT, he was a very clever, thoughtful and articulate young man and did not see making this decision as a burden or crisis, but just part of who he is and how his life is.

he was called Hamish, i remember that much.

He does seem to be a lovely boy but I thought he was only about six in the last programme? Very young to have to be dealing with decisions such as this.

It is a huge decision isn't it. My mums friend is part of a large family who have a hereditary dwarfism that is described by the family as vitamin D resistant rickets - its become very widespread in the family over the last 3 generations, so that most of the grandchildren are affected.
All of the grandchildren have had limb lengthening surgery - even some at the same time so that they had company. The affected parents have expressed that they wish that they could have had it done too.

cmotdibbler, thank you very much for your post, that's really interesting.