Cardiology Checkup

I am fully aware I have not blogged Easter and there are some very blogworthy photos/phrases (such as “Look, the Easter bunny laid a car egg”) but Ryan’s annual checkup with cardiology was today.  I took my camera, wanting a pic of him covered in EKG stickers, but he was pretty unamused with the whole process and it just didn’t seem like a Kodak moment.  We did survive, thanks to the tv’s in every exam room at CMH North.  He was as usual, captivated by Sponge Bob and held perfectly still for his echo, towards the end, he just looked at me and started saying “Mama, Mom, Momma” over and over as in what in the hell is she doing and why haven’t you picked me up yet.  He took his favorite bear-bear and held tightly the whole time.  When the echo tech tried to put a sticker on bear-bear, she found out what the look of death looks like when coming from an almost 2 year old.  After the echo, we talked to Dr. D, the cardiologist.  He was more talkative this year (last year, I just remember him saying, “he is fine, complete repair, perfect, don’t give him any special treatment”.  Today he still said he was fine, but did say he had some leakage from his aortic valve that has caused a slight enlargement of his left ventricle, but it is very mild and within the range of what a normal kids heart would look like.  Just something they will continue to watch.  He asked about speech, saying they do sometime see speech and language delays in TGA kids because of the decreased oxygenated blood flow to the brain in utereo.  Fortunately, Ryan is talking up a storm and although he was born with a small head (5% compared with 90-95% for his brothers), he caught up extremely quickly, yeah Ryan.  When we came home, he said “I unt grapes, I unt choclate milk”.  Lot’s of words for not even 2 year old.  I think that is all for the most part.  He did say he has some mild dilation of the aortic root, caused by the fact that it was originally headed to his pulmonary artery and is thinner.  This dilation means he shouldn’t be involved in weight lifting when he gets bigger.  He can do weight training, as long as he doesn’t hold his breath while he tries to lift as much weight as he can.  While this doesn’t bother me, I do worry that telling a teenager he can’t do something, will only make him want to do it more and I feel more pressure to do everything right parenting wise so that we have a good relationship at that time in his life and he will listen to us and his doctors.  At least I have probably 10-12 years before that worry is realized.  Another note related to bear-bear, he continues to have the binky only at night, now when he gets tired, he will say in this really low voice “unt bear-bear, blanket, binky”.  So cute.