Evie Gets A Break

We took Evie to see her cardiologist, Dr, Gulecyuz, this morning. Good news - he and the team at Hope Children's Hospital have decided to leave her alone for awhile! They do not recommend any surgery at this time; instead, they want her to gain weight and heal completely. This is what we were hoping to hear.

We discussed many things with Dr. G, including the findings of her angiogram last week. Her left lung used to not have enough blood flow, and now it has too much, which has resulted in high pressure in that lung. Also in this lung there is a group of blood vessels (which the angiogram doc called a hemangioma) that are "angry" looking (Dr. G's word) and probably do not provide a good oxygen exchange. None of this existed before her February surgery, when a new conduit was attached to her heart connecting to her left lung. It is hard to say if this would have happened anyway, or if the conduit had anything to do with it.

Luckily, her lower right lung is doing very well and her cardiac functions are strong. She does not have the degree of diastolic dysfunction that Dr. G. thought she had. As usual, we were told that overall she is doing well! We will just slowly get her to eat more, be more active, and hopefully wean from the oxygen.

Here we are at Dr. G's office. Evie loves sitting at this table and pulling crayons out of the caddy (she's not very interested in coloring with them)!

Lucky Evie - more crayons in the exam room!

Evie's nurse showed me how to attach her blood pressure cuff, and let me check her pulse-ox (you can't really see it here but Evie has the sensor on her toe):

Nurse Julie thought Evie's scar was healing well - Evie agrees!

Evie wanted to hand me every little scrap of crayon wrappers from the container:

All done and ready to leave - just a quick look out the window with Daddy!

Evie leaned on the glass, but stood up fairly confidently! Also, she walked (assisted) this morning with Francis and again with me at the end of the day!