“My best advice to any parent is go and get them braced DO NOT WAIT. They don’t ‘grow out of it’. It will not get better on it’s own. As a parent, you want to do everything you can to bolster your child’s confidence in themselves, their comfort with being ‘who they are’. And if they have a physical issue like this, there is something you can do about it…. take them to Pectus Services and see Joe.
If I had it to do over, I would have taken my son to see Joe a year earlier and spared him a summer of embarrassment when as he hit his growth spurt, the ‘bump’ in the center of his chest grew to protrude almost 3 inches from his chest, seemingly overnight.
This is a personal thing for your child, particularly a pre-teen as my son was, as they become more aware of their body. I could see he was hunching his shoulders more and more to minimize the appearance of the bony ridge in the center of his chest…. and the final straw was when we were going through airport security and the guard pointed to his t-shirted chest and said ‘what do you have there’? We went to Joe immediately after that.
I love Joe (yes, my husband knows this!). He knew how to connect with my pre-teen son (quite a feat as all you mothers of boys-who-don’t-talk-to-you know!), to put him at ease and to give him the needed words of encouragement and explanation through the 8 month process. He was always available to answer my questions, thoroughly, and to give me some heads-up on what to expect, not only about the treatment, but about what my son was going through. And now look at him. He proudly plays shirts and skins basketball games (although it has done nothing for his jumpshot!!), plays lacrosse without fear of getting hit in the chest where the pad-on-bone ridge would hurt him and we look forward to going to the beach this summer.
Joe will forever be on our christmas card list, and in my thankful prayers. He gave my son back his confidence and, in the words of the mastercard commercial, that’s priceless.”
Pat Leonard