A Little More Sunshine

I woke Olivia up bright and early this morning and was surprised to find her in a good mood. This kid is usually pretty cranky if she's bothered before she's ready to wake. But, she rolled over, smiled and said, "Can we go to Trudy's house now?" We had been talking about going to see Trudy or Natalie and Dr. Law all week. We told Olivia they would listen to her heart and talk with Mama and Daddy. She kept telling us, "Doca Law will listen to my heart and I have to hold really still!"

After an early morning ride, we made our way to The University for Olivia's Cardiology check-up. They took us right back and got all of her vitals taken care of. Even though we had talked about going to the doctor all week and Olivia seemed perfectly okay with it, she went into panic mode the minute someone with a white coat walked in the room or if anyone tried to touch her. Heck, I don't blame her. The poor kid has had her share of traumatic experiences at that place...

After they took her vitals, we went back into the exam room to wait for Eulie, the EKG tech. Olivia drew on the chalkboard and climbed around on the chairs.





In walked Eulie with her big machine and her white coat. That was the end of play time. Olivia began crying and clinging to Mama and Daddy. Steve ended up laying on the table, holding Olivia in his arms. We were able to get her calmed down and distracted enough to perform the EKG. After she was done, Olivia still clung to Daddy and ate some Teddy Grahams to make her feel better!



Then Natalie, ARNP (The Other Trudy) came in to chat with us before Dr. Law made his appearance. Again, we had some serious panicking, but once Olivia discovered Natalie knew who Mickey Mouse was, she was okay! After entering Olivia's new data into her computer we took a look at Olivia's growth trend. For weight versus age ratio, Olivia was in the 50th percentile and for height versus weight she was in the 75th percentile! We were all ecstatic with this. These numbers are stellar for a heart kiddo. I asked Natalie why were weren't doing an echocardiogram today since we had been doing one every six months or more. She said that between the first and second surgery they do them more frequently and with Olivia's battle with Chylothorax things were also a lot more unstable. However, they usually only do them once a year with single ventricle kids once they are more stable.

After this, Dr. Law came in to check Olivia over. He was very pleased with the way things sounded and with how she looked. He felt that although her saturations are a bit lower, we will continue to see this trend until she's ready for her next surgery. She was running 85-90% and now it is closer to 80-85%, which he is still very happy with. We talked about her next surgery and Dr. Law felt that we would be able to wait until Spring/Summer 2011, maybe even a bit longer.


Here's Miss Livi-Pie stealing Dr. Law's seat!

Thank you all for your many thoughts and prayers for today's visit. They definitely worked. It was a great appointment with no negative news. Praise God!