Pushing 25 lbs!

WoWsers!! Penelope tipped the scales at 25 lbs and .4 oz. That is of course with all her clothes and her leather shoes, not to mention the full diaper. The visit went well enough. I confirmed something I found online that Dr. Mello moved to New Orleans. Katie, his PA, now works solely in the P.I.C.U. I asked Penny's cardiologist who will do surgeries now and the answer is that they no longer do pediatric cardiac surgeries at CCMC. If a family needs heart surgery on their child, they either go to Yale or to Boston Children's Hospital. How sad, how very, very sad. It was such a relief knowing that my child was having surgery so close to home. But I guess you can't have it all. Some states don't have facilities like this such as VT, and they are hoping this is temporary, until they find someone else. . . .

But, now on to Penny's visit: Her VSD patch looks great, and the homograph conduit looks good with only trivial leakage. I was informed that you are never going to get a conduit that doesn't have some leakage. I asked about the muscle tissue growing on the right ventricle (Right ventricular hypertrophy), I was told that for now the size of her right ventricle looks good. As the conduit begins to fail, the heart will try to compensate and that side of the heart will enlarge some more, but we should be a long way off for that. Her EKG was normal. The only cause for concern was the size of her right pulmonary artery. You may recall in a post from last May at her last visit, my concerns laid with her left p.a. and how very happy we were that it was not as stenotic as it may have appeared during a cardiac catheter procedure in Nov 2007. Well, this time, it is the rpa that seems to have us guessing. It isn't a matter of it looking bad, it is more of a matter of her not being able to get a great look at the rpa. There may be scar tissue blocking the entrance, or it may be a shadow. Hard to tell in the echo cardiogram. So, Dr. Salazar recommends an MRI just to be safe. I am sure I was worried over nothing in the days leading to her appointment today, but now I have to worry some more until we get a better picture on the MRI. Worst case, they do another catheter to balloon up the stenotic rpa, WHICH IS NOT THAT BAD but still, I have to wonder. . . and wait!