Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Cath is Scheduled
Children's called today and Travis is scheduled for his heart catheterization on Friday, November 12th in the early morning. Please pray that the cath procedure will show minimal narrowing and that the doctors would be able to balloon open the narrowed parts of his pulmonary artery. Thanks you.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Pumpkin Patch
We took Travis out to the local pumpkin patch a few weeks ago. Too bad it was a million degrees out there that day and that made him a cranky butt. We had a good time though and met up with some friends.
Still waiting to hear from the Children's team as to when the heart cath will be. We will be sure to update everyone when we know anything. Hopefully, it can be done before 11/24 when we are scheduled in the O.R. to deliver Travis his baby sister.
Happy 1st Birthday Travis Gary!!!
So, this post is a few days late. Sorry about that. It is difficult to find a free minute these days.
Saturday, October 23rd, our little heart hero turned 1 year old. It is hard to imagine that a whole year has gone by. I have described this past year to friends as the longest, shortest year of my life. The bad parts seemed to drag on and the good parts seemed to go by so quickly. I have to say that we are SO, SO, LUCKY to have Travis in our lives. He is such a special little guy. I have never met a baby that smiles more or has a better personality than Travis. Given all he has been through, it is amazing he has such a bubbly personality.
One year ago we were filled with terror at the unknowns. Would our boy be born a fighter? Would he make it through the Norwood? We he ever use the room we so lovingly decorated? I remember the excitement and the terror I felt during labor. I remember the pain and sadness I felt when Roger and my newborn baby left me in the recovery room on their way to Children's Hospital. Most of all, I remember how my heart felt so full of love for this little guy. I had to wait 5 long, painful days to get to hold (more like lift) Travis and the rush of emotion that day can never be described into words.
To celebrate one hell of a year, we decided to invite some close friends and family to a local park for a Yo Gabba Gabba themed party. Travis really loves that show (especially when he is fighting eating) so we thought it would be appropriate to use the Gabba creatures as our theme. Thankfully, a week full of rain cleared up just enough to enjoy a nice Saturday at the park. Here are some pictures from the party:
Travis in his birthday shirt
Birthday banner made with love and a lot of curse words. It turned out cute though!
Table decor
More decor
Brobee cupcakes
Muno cake
"Happy Birthday to you, Happy birthday to you.....and, MANY more!!"
He wasn't so sure of it. He barely ate any!
Present time! Notice the Yo Gabba Gabba shirts that mommy and daddy have on. Travis would grab at the characters and smile!
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Troublesome News from the Cardiologist
We had Travis' 12 month cardiology appointment with Dr. Levy today. We got some good news as well as some news that worries us. First the positives, even though his weight gain has stalled a little bit since he has been crawling, he still is following his own little curve and Dr. Levy was happy with that. His weight although it is improving, it is still under 1 percentile mark. He is officially on the percentile chart for length at 25 percent.
They did an echo on his heart and Dr. Levy said overall his heart function is still good. However, they were finally able to get a good picture of his pulmonary branches to the lungs. Unfortunately, the right pulmonary branch has some stenosis (narrowing) that Dr. Levy is concerned with. His plan right now is to bring the pictures to the attention of the cardiac team at Children's and get some other opinions on what interventions they may need to do. Originally, the plan was for Travis to get to 17-20 months old and then do a combined Glenn/Fontan procedure. However, if his pulmonary branches are not "big and juicy" enough, they would not be able to do the Fontan. Therefore, Dr. Levy is thinking that Travis may need to go in for a heart catheterization in the next month or so. A heart cath would give them some more definitive answers about the degree of narrowing and what interventions they need. It may be the case that the branches just need to be ballooned open in the cath lab. Worst case scenario is that the narrowing is extensive (long) and would need to be surgically stented. Dr. Levy though that it is possible that the narrowing is caused by scar tissue from when he had his first surgery and they had put the bands around this part of his arteries. If that is the case, it would probably be pretty narrow and HOPEFULLY easily repaired. Dr. Levy is going to contact Dr. Lamberti his team and get back to us by the end of the week.
As you can imagine, Roger and I are a little panicked. Like we said, it is sooo easy to forget the extent of his medical problems when he is just like a normal little dude in so many ways. We were just so used to getting good reports that we were kind of shocked. Travis never really wants to follow the "normal" path for this heart defect so I suppose we should have been prepared for another snafu....but, really, how could you prepare for bad news.
We are trying not to focus on the "what if's" and instead pray that they will be able to repair the narrowing in the cath lab and that it would be an easy fix. Wishing we didn't have to think about this now as we really are looking forward to our warrior turning one year old in just four days!!!
We will post more when we here back from Dr. Levy with a plan. Pray for our little guy!
Monday, October 18, 2010
Heart Echo appointment Tomorrow
I know that we haven't updated the blog in a long time, but things have been extremely busy and there is not really a lot to report about Travis.
Tomorrow we have his 1 year heart echo. Hopefully this will answer a lot of the questions Nicole and I have regarding Travis' little heart. He seems to have nothing wrong with him. He is super high energy and crawls everywhere now. He is super fun and learns some new trick everyday.
We are excited about the appointment tomorrow, but also scared.
We will update any news this week.
Roger
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