no more pulmonary hypertension=)

hi babe=) we went to the cardiologist yesterday. at first she was really nervous because she wasn't aware that they stopped your sildenafil at uva and there were a few other things that made her worry that your pulmonary hyptertension was getting worse, but then she went ahead and did the echo to look at your heart and pulmonary vessels. and they finally said what she wanted them to=) you don't have pulmonary hyptertension anymore! i was sitting there in the chair holding you and trying to keep you happy (you were sleepy and crabby, which would also increase your pulmonary pressures) and dr falterman was looking at the screen. she showed me this curve we were looking at and said she liked that. i detected this different smile on her face and i said "i see it but i'm not sure what that means" and she said "did you not see those numbers?" and i didn't so she showed me again...and there were your pulmonary pressures nice and normal. i sat there with this big smile on my face and got tears in my eyes that wouldn't go away for about 15 minutes as we looked at the rest of your heart (which looked good and was functioning perfectly, by the way. your heart just sits different in your chest but that's not a problem) and toward the end of your appointment i apologized to her and said i was trying not to be dramatic but i felt like i was gonna cry and she said "that's ok-i'll cry with you." we like her. so if by any chance you need to be reminded why this is such a big deal...the pulmonary hypertension is why you needed a trach and long-term ventilation in the first place. the blood vessels to your lungs needed time to grow and make your lungs function like they should and you working harder to breathe was making those things worse. so anyway....put very simply, the fact that you don't have pulmonary hypertension anymore should essentially mean you don't need the trach and ventilator anymore! but that probably is a little too simple. they won't just turn the ventilator off and take the trach out overnight. your lungs still aren't quite used to working on their own so they'll slowly wean (but maybe a little faster now?) you off the ventilator and maybe toward the end of the summer take the trach out. i should go ahead and say this is my guess at what they'll do. sometimes i do actually know what i'm talking about and sometimes i have no clue. we'll see=)

you had a big week of doctor's appointments. the main things to say is that your pulmonary hypertension is gone, you got your 9 month vaccines, and we've adjusted your feeds to help you grow and catch up with where you should be. (the events of the last 2 months caused you to slow down on the growth curve...nobody's suprised, but of course we now want you to start growing well again!)

you're way cute. you're doing pretty awesome sitting up. you'll topple over here and there but you're doing so much better. here's a picture.


man you're cute. you are snoozing now and i need to go get stuff in the car. we are taking a very big trip here in an hour or two. it will be super fun for sure=) oh-and you got your fourth tooth this week. congratulations=) now you have your bottom two and top two-and there's this gap between your top two and it's the cutest thing i've ever seen.

love you babe-

mommy