Cardiology Followup Appointment

Ryan's follow up appointment with Dr. Drake was last Thursday.  I now know that he was really just checking (via a chest x-ray) to see if his diaphragm had started function again and .... IT HAS!  We are so excited and relieved to see the normal x-ray.  We had heard many times that it would, but never got any exact odds or a timeframe or explanation in general other then it can take a long time, so we had gotten discouraged, but it is all in the past now.  His lungs are clear and he no longer needs to take Lasix, a diuretic that was keeping his lungs from accumulating to much fluid which would have made his heart work harder.  When I was cleaning the kitchen, I saw the bottle and all of the syringe dispensers and thought about throwing them away, but waited for Jason to get home, so we could do it together.  He will not need to see his cardiologist again until April, 6 months from now, when he will have an echo (ultrasound of the heart) to make sure that his heart is continuing to function as it should and that there is no excessive narrowing of the pulmonary branches.  During his first follow up at 2 months, he had an echo that looked great according to Dr. Drake.  There was a small amount of narrowing, but according to Dr. Drake, that is really inevitable in Transposition because of the manner in which the arteries originally formed.  He says that he will watch pretty closely for the first year or so because growth is so rapid.  Eventually, he will need an echo just once a year.  I read the blog of a mom to a five year old boy who was born with Transposition and she was talking about that now his yearly checkup is about the only time she thinks about his heart and how that was a slow transitions.  Like anything, first she would go a day, then maybe a week and eventually think of it only rarely.   That's still hard to imagine, but I can at least imagine it now that his diaphragm is working. 

 

Another heart related tidbit, I finally got to met the heart mom that made the blanket that was in the care package we received from the CHD family support group while we were in the hospital (actually while we were waiting during surgery).  I knew the family went to our church because there was an article about them in the church newspaper and I had seen them a couple of times, but just never made it over to say hi after mass.  Today, I was at a skating party with Kyle and I saw who I thought was the same mom, so I asked and it was.  The story is kind of hard to explain and no where to start, so I am sure she thought I was a complete lunatic or stalker, but eventually I explained it and it was a great small world story.  I really want to get my act together and make a blanket or two for a care package to go to another family.