a great cardiology visit!

Maddie and Dr. Chun

Maddie had her second cardiology visit since surgery yesterday...the last one put her back in the hospital, so I was a bit nervous with this appt. and came prepared to Seattle this time. We had an early appointment, 8:30 at the main campus, so we left at 4:45am to avoid getting stuck in traffic. Ugh! We made it with plenty of time to spare.

She had the full work-up at this visit: echo, ekg, chest x-ray, sat check and vitals. Her weight is 15.2 kilos (33.4 lbs) and sats were 86%. This is why we're seeing PINK! It's amazing how much 12% more points in oxygen levels can do for a girl :) Her weight has just teetered around 14-15 kilos, not gaining but maintaining for now. Unfortunately, she got a bad stomach flu over the weekend after getting home from our second hospital stay. She was so sick--throwing up 2-3 times an hour for 12 hours straight, fever and could not keep anything down. I was so worried about dehydration, inability to hold down her meds, and of course these types of illnesses always happen over a weekend. Her doctors and I joked that maybe the flu bug helped dry those pleural effusions up. Joking aside, it was an awful flu and thank goodness Children's has a Cardiologist 24/7 to talk to and ease my worries.

Dr. Chun was so pleased with how the echo looked. He did mention that her pressures in her Fontan are still on the high side, so she's getting plenty of use out of her pop-off valve. So glad she has a fenestrated Fontan, I think she'd still be in the hospital if there wasn't that little escape-route hole in the conduit for blood to go when the pressure is high. Other than a great echo report, she had a CLEAR chest x-ray! Yay!!! It was amazing to see this. Her lasix dose has now been cut in half, she'll only be on 20 mls 1x a day instead of twice. Other than the lasix, she's just on a baby asprin a day. She's on sternal precautions until July 10 and we're starting to venture out more with her, we've enjoyed some family get-togethers and the boys are busy with VBS this week.

Getting this wonderful report from Dr. Chun brought me to tears on the way home. It's amazing how well Maddie's recovered...she's only 5 weeks out from a major surgery and getting back to "normal" already, well, a new "normal" for her--PINK and a bit more feisty these days! We love watching her play and run around now with her new found energy and lease on life. We are so thankful and relishing every bit of it.