Cardiology Follow-up

We met today with our cardiologist for April’s follow-up appointment.  In my mind this was the “big one” because they do an ultra-sound on her heart and basically check to see how the fix looks (how her valves are operating, leakage, etc).  We got all fantastic news!  The fix looks great and everything is functioning well and as it should!  We will continue to have follow-up appointments, 2 or 3 this year and then they space out assuming everything keeps looking good.  Our doctor was careful to warn us that she is still at a higher risk for other “issues” to develop later, but from what he can see, he doesn’t expect any and is very hopeful that this was a one-time fix.  Praise the LORD!!

That was the big news and exactly what we were hoping and praying to hear.  But, you know what?  God answered the smaller prayers like we were hoping too.  He is so good; time and again I’m reminded that He is a God of details and I’m SO SO SO thankful for that!!  There are two challenges that we’ve been dealing with here at home in regards to April and her recovery, and I’m discovering that one difficulty (blessing?) of dealing with many doctors and specialists is that they often differ on their advice.  For example…

The first challenge we’ve had is that April has suddenly developed a liking to sleeping on her side.  Our surgeon had mentioned that this could stress the healing of the sternum.  I wasn’t concerned since she’s never been a side sleeper, but when suddenly that changed I brought it up at our follow-up appointment with her pediatrician last week.  (Note that our pediatrician “just happened” to have done his residency at Dell Children’s and worked closely with our cardiologist.)   I asked him exactly how big of a deal it really was and if I need to be setting my alarm during the night to get up make sure she isn’t on her side.  He said is could move the sutures and he would check every two to three hours.  Ugh.  Okay.  So I’ve been getting up every two hours during the night to check on her (not to mention worrying every time I find her on her side).  Needless to say I’ve been exhausted.  When I mentioned this to our cardiologist he gave us a look that said “Are you insane?” and said he never would have recommended that and it certainly won’t hurt her healing or the fix.  What a blessing to hear!!  We’ll still check on her periodically, but no more setting my alarm (I’m up at least once or twice a night anyway).  Fabulous!

The second was trying to ALWAYS keep her calm so her blood pressure wouldn’t rise and stress the fix on her heart.  Essentially we found ourselves having to give in anytime she really decided she wanted something and, well, that’s just not parenting!  So frustrating and I’ve concluded that it is WAY more exhausting to parent kids without set boundaries for them.  Not to mention feeling bad for poor Abe who was getting the raw end of the deal so often.  Same story with the doctors.  Asked pediatrician – told to not use timeouts but distraction instead and not do sleep training until the six weeks were over.  Asked cardiologist – he said not to treat her any different in terms of behavior.  Hallelujah!  Again, we’ll take a bit of a middle road between the advice of the two doctors.  We aren’t going to implement sleep training yet, but the little princess isn’t going to get away with everything any more.  Time for the pants in the family to return to the parents and not the demanding diva!

We have our follow-up appointment with our surgeon on Monday and we’ll ask him the same questions.  It’ll be interesting to hear his answers.  =)  I feel like I should end this by saying we highly respect and trust all three of these doctors and value all of their advice.  Just a reminder that even medicine isn’t as black and white as we sometimes think it is.