Monday, August 13, 2007

General Check Up!

On Friday, Caleb saw his regular doctor. Why?? Just the standard 4 month check up. Whew!

How nice just to have a normal check-up. :) I had my check-up earlier in the day, and then it was Caleb's turn. He was pretty excited about the whole thing.

He watched the nurses and the doctor, very interested in what they were up to. He was weighed and measured without issue. He is now 14.5 lbs and 26 inches long! That bumps him up to the 50th percentile in weight (from the 25th). His height was in the 50th percentile, but that was also boosted up to the 70th percentile! Whoa! Go baby!

Apparently with all this extra O2 that he's getting, he's going to use it to grow like a little weed. :)

He also showed off, slapping his feet down onto the paper they had on the exam table. It was very loud to talk to the doctor over the sounds of the laughing and squeeling. He thought the whole exam was a great play-date with the doctor. I hadn't seen him have that great of a time before!

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and his friend the nurse betrayed him by sticking him with not one, not two, but THREE needles. Oh, the little one cried. He was so betrayed and hurt, and just didn't know what to do. He hollared for a little while, and finally calmed down.

The next few days he was grumpy and achy.

It didn't stop us from trying his first solid foods, however! At the doctor's office we got the okay for him to start rice cereal. On Sunday evening I pulled up a chair, put him in his "Bumbo" and showed him the bowl and spoon. Caleb thought they were pretty funny. He thought the camera in his face was pretty funny, too. He laughed as the spoon was getting filled, and watched it as it came towards his mouth. In it went... and the little one gagged. Apparently he thinks rice cereal tastes as good as I think it does!!!

Well, the gagging stopped, and we have lots of pictures of a smiling boy with rice cereal dripping down his chin, his shirt, his sleeves, his hands and.... well, almost everything else! He did very well, and actually did get a few bites to eat before he got angry with the whole process. He was hungry and wanted food. Silly guy didn't realize he was already eating!

The little guy is in bed now, and I think I will get some sleep, too. Ta! :)

Or as Caleb would say: UNGOWA!

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Updates

Caleb went to the cardiologist and they checked him out. Of course they couldn't see the left side of the heart. Isn't that just the case? So they said they think the artery is still open, but they are unable to see for sure.

Of course, that's not good enough for my doctor, so we're going to have to go into the hospital for the lung test in nuclear medicine again. It always seems like something is going on, doesn't it? Anyhow, we'll be heading in there near the end of the month, but will get the results right that day instead of having to wait for them.

We're hoping that the baby has at least a 70/30 split with the bloodflow to the lungs. The normal amount is 55/45, favoring the right side. Most of us are probably walking around with that. So we're talking to the baby about it, letting him know what his score should be.

If he makes the 70/30--no further action to be taken. We woot, we party, we do the happy dance!

If he does less than that, then they talk about the stent again. They cannot put an adult stent through the leg on the baby. If they do this, they will have to go in later and *rip it out.* This involves open-chest, real hard-core heart surgery. No thanks. So they have 'invented' an option. They will go to the surgeons, go thru the chest wall with an adult size stent (not opening the chest bone) and put it in place.

This will then require several smaller "surgeries" through the leg as the baby gets older to open up the stent into the full, adult size it will become.

What I am hoping for is this: Now that the lung gets the idea that it's supposed to be having a good blood flow, and now that the baby is on aspirin therapy, the two will combine (wonder twin powers, ACTIVATE!) and let that bloodflow grow like it should!

We found out the aspirin is every day for life. :) Hope the baby likes aspirin.