James went in for another cardiology check up today, bright and early at 7am. It was the easiest appointment we have ever had in terms of James's attitude and behavior-Echos used to take over an hour because we had to keep James entertained and still. I had to sit with him in the bed, hold his head at certain angles, and when he was a baby, even nurse him to keep him still while they were doing the actual echo. As I told the tech today, the days of having to do a song and a dance, so to speak, are gone, and thankfully so! We put on Toy Story, gave James a sucker, and the echo was done within 25 minutes. James cried for a few minutes when asked to lay down on the bed, but after that, he was perfectly content. He loves the blood pressure and EKG machines, so those were no big deal-he enjoys taking the blood pressure cuff and EKG stickers off. Jackson was with us, but he just wandered around the room, or sat in my lap the whole time. All the nurses in the office always exclaim about James' hair, and how big he is getting-these nurses have been with the office since we started coming here when James was a baby, so they really have seen him progress and grow. they all said they felt like they were in a time warp because Jackson apparently looks just like James did at that age! Upon looking at some of James' pictures, I have to agree-the similarity is uncanny.
So the appointment went well, and I was so proud of James for handling it like a pro. Everything on his tests looked great, thank heavens! the gradient across his aortic valve is 20; it was 18 post-op, and the lower the better. They consider the current 20 close enough to the 18 to say there is no change from surgery, which is great-it means the surgical fix is holding up well, and that is something Jared and I were really worried about. James' aortic arch has only slight narrowing in the same spot, which was expected-nothing of great significance, and the blood flow through it is great, as are his pulses in his feet, which also suggests good blood flow. His mitral valve is showing a small gradient of 5, which is so small, it is not considered an area of concern at all-Dr. Garn is just keeping an eye on it since it has shown a small gradient like that before. Nothing to worry about, just something to monitor.
That's it! We don't go back for another 6 months! Upon Dr. Garn's advice, I am going to take James back to his ENT to start looking at his focal cords. James still doesn't have much of a cry or a laugh-both sound like raspy, heavy breathing, and that's it. I haven't been too concerned as it takes up to a year for those vocal cords to heal. However, we decided it would be good to establish a "baseline" of where he is at, and then as we get closer to that year mark, we can start to decide if there are therapies/surgeries we want to engage in to resolve this issue.
Enjoying the echo sucker and the EKG stickers!
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