cardiologist appointment

brooks had a follow-up cardiologist appointment yesterday and he did great! we were there for 3 hours and not once did he complain or loose his cool. i didn't think that the doctor would want to do another echo since she ordered one last time (7 months ago) but she wanted to check to make sure his heart function was still as good as it was the last time. i'm guessing that when your heart was just barely functioning and your coronary artery was in the wrong spot they want to make sure things are working correctly for a while. so after 2 hours of waiting we went in for our echo.

brooks sat and watched the screen looking like, "what the heck is that?" it kept him occupied for almost the whole time, then he realized that there were cords everywhere. cords! brooks loves cords and was in toddler heaven pulling on all the cords connected to him which made it difficult for the lady trying to do the echo but i figured he had made it all the way through being so good, a few cord pulls wasn't hurting anyone.

during the echo the tech isn't really supposed to say anything and i'm sitting there looking at the screen trying to make heads or tails of what the heck she is looking at. once the doctor came in i was preparing myself for something that i wouldn't expect. after looking at a few of the pictures and films of his heart she turned and said, "his heart is really functioning quite well." phew! she showed me some pictures of the heart squeezing and the mitral valve, which was their main concern for the future. the heart squeezes almost like a normal heart. it also almost looks like a normal heart. there is some scar tissue where the heart was damaged but that is about it. his valve also has minimal leakage and a trace murmur, no valve replacement for this kid! all in all, he still has a normal functioning heart. nothing short of a miracle. we were once told from one of the surgeons to not expect too much of a recovery, that his heart was severely damaged. i'd say he proved them wrong, and just 10 days shy of his 2 year anniversary of heart surgery. a heart surgery that took us by complete surprise and turned our world upside down yet again.

my main hope (besides the whole heart function stuff ;) ) was that brooks would be able to come off some of his medicine. right now he takes 6 doses of medicine a day. and one of them has to stay refrigerated. it's a pain for all of us. the good news is he is off the refrigerated one (yay! he had to take this one 3 times a day) and is now on a pill that replaces it and he only has to take that once a day. so now we are down to 4 doses of medicine. i did ask the doctor what her thoughts were about how long he'll be on medicine. she thought he would always be on the pill she prescribed for his blood pressure. even though his heart is functioning normally because of the damage they just want to make sure it doesn't have to work any harder so lowering his blood pressure would make it a little easier. he'll also always be on a baby aspirin to thin his blood for the same reason. i can handle two pills a day. right now he is still on his heart function medicine but the hope is to take him off that in 3 months when we go back to check his heart again. she wants to make sure the blood pressure medicine she switched him too isn't affecting his function.

so, it was a good day and a great appointment yesterday. just a very long one. now, on to carson's botox appointment tomorrow. boo. i hate those but i do love to see his skinny little butt walking and running so it's worth the 5 minutes of tears. i'll make sure to reward him with some legos.

my two little miracles

silly faces!