Suncadia Family Vacation

We enjoyed a super fun and relaxing family vacation up at Suncadia with Bryan's family. The cousins had a ball together...riding bikes, playing on this very cool playground, swimming and water sliding, and chasing chipmunks. We had a great house that fit all of our families & fun memories were made!

swimming lessons

These boys turned into fish this summer...Maddie isn't afraid of the water and her green hair proves it!
fun times at the little pools with cousins Kylie & Grady!

cherry harvest

Update & Team Maddie Moomer's!

Summer is flying by! We've been so busy...I just haven't had time to update the blog. We're all doing great and enjoying these last days before school begins. Maddie's doing awesome and had a cardiology check-up last Monday proving just that. Her O2 sats have settled now between 85-88% and she's really grown since surgery, weighing 34.8 lbs and 39.5 inches tall which puts her in the 73rd percentile for weight and 83rd for height! She was such a big girl for her appointment, the hospital hasn't left any "damage" that I can tell...Dr. Chun even got a great big hug when he walked in the room. It's great going back with a healthy little girl and getting such fantastic news on her heart. We won't return to cardiology now until after Thanskgiving and we'll be toting a baby along by then too! We're getting so excited for the arrival of this little one. He/she proves to be a go-getter--my bulging belly feels bruised from all of the kicks and acrobatics done in there. The boys have played so hard this summer...I love listening to brothers play and cherish these days. They're growing up so quickly...Jace turns 8 tomorrow and Cade is pumped to start Kindergarten in a week. I can't believe it.

We're gearing up again for the "Run for Children's Covey Run" this weekend over in Woodinville. Maddie's Aunt Lesa has organized our team, ordered our t-shirts and it looks like Team Maddie Moomer's will be represented well again this year! If you would like to join us, the race begins at 8am Saturday. The entry fee is $40 which benefits Seattle Children's Uncompensated Care Program. Our team is raising funds for CHD research again through the Seattle Children's Heart Guild. All donations are 100% tax deductible and can be made on-line through our first-giving website. Click HERE if you're interested in supporting our cause and sponsoring our team. Thanks and I promise to update soon, I have lots more to share!!!

summertime fun

Life is great...it's normal and routine. We're loving it! Here's a little of what we've been up to...
Seattle Mariner's Game & it was double bobble-head night! Someone was not happy because the playground was at capacity and wouldn't let us go in and play...drama
Enjoying our local community days "Summerfest" at the park & watching the parade
playing with cousins...Grady & Kylie
boating at the river with Allred Cousins...here's Savanna knee boarding for the first time!
tootling outside, playing in the watertable
Pond days...
sunny days outdoors & picking mom's flowers
warm evenings playing catch
rough-housing brothers...they invented the game of swinging on the swings then jumping off into this little plastic pool. Yep, the pool didn't survive this game :)
loving on our new kitty "Cheeto" she's a tough one!

Independence

Today has a new meaning for me...not only are we celebrating our country's freedom but our baby is not a baby anymore. She has found her independence and Maddie's quite quickly turned into a kid. I can honestly say we've seen this transformation happen in the past couple of weeks since her surgery. Maybe it's because I've let down my guard with her, letting her play like a typical 3 year old, or maybe it's because she doesn't feel as lousy and tired from the lack of oxygen her body was so used to getting by on. I assume it's the latter. But watching her par-take in the fireworks we had last night for Nany's birthday party defined independence. She played hard with her brothers and cousins, running and carrying on with her precious half-heart like she has a whole one. She kept up.

I found myself taking big sighs of relief watching her. She's as healthy as she's ever been and it will only be 6 weeks tomorrow since her heart and little body endured surgery. The fontan has done wonders for her and for our family. I'm a fontan fan. Simply put, Maddie is more liberated and it's a joy to witness. I'm so glad we have a baby coming this fall though...I've turned around and this little girl is quickly growing-up. Her heart is happy and so is ours.

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.