results of the last appointment

Well, the "busy day ahead" statement that I made last time I posted?  Yeah, that was a HUGE understatement.

The first appointment (the echo) got started late, and then took a lot longer than expected because Aiden decided that he was going to fight the sleep and then wake up twice while he was supposed to be sleeping.  (But, of course, decided to sleep heavily while he was supposed to be waking up.)  Once the echo was done, we headed across the floor to meet with the doctor about getting the results.  Because the echo was backed up, we didn't get in to see the doctor about the results until after 1:00.  (We were supposed to see him at 11:00, they'd just started the echo at 10:45.)

The nurse practitioner came in and went over the results with us, which were exactly what we were expecting.  When he was born, and while he was on the oscillator, he had a condition called Pulmonary Hypertension which is high (blood?) pressures in the arteries of the lungs, which makes the heart have to work harder.  By the time we were released from SickKids, it had resolved itself, but they want to make sure that it's not going to come back.  His heart is working perfectly, and the only thing that concerned them was a small hole at the top of his heart.  She said that every baby is born with it, and it usually closes itself up by now, but they're not going to do anything about it at this point, because it still could close itself.  We go again next year for a follow up, and they'll look at it again and go from there.

We had another appointment after that to see the surgeon that did his hernia repair, so we ran upstairs to see her, but she was off the floor for a bit, so we went and did a lung perfusion scan.  They injected a small amount of radioactive dye into his body, and did x-rays on his lungs to see how much blood was making itself into each lung.  (If the results of that were poor, the nurse practitioner was going to call us.  We haven't gotten any calls yet, so I'm assuming the results came back okay.)

After that, we went back up to see the surgeon.  She poked at him for a couple seconds, asked about his diet, told us to go down to the main floor and get an x-ray and said she'd see us again in a year.

Finally, we were able to grab a bite to eat.  And then we headed home.

And, I'm starving, so I'll have to update more later.

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, its off to SickKids we go...

Aiden is five months old today! Time freakin' flies, man.

To celebrate, we're off to SickKids for some check ups. At 9, he has an echo, to make sure that his heart is doing what its supposed to be doing, and its doing it where its supposed to be doing it. At 11, he has another appointment with a cardiologist to... go over the echo results? We're assuming, anyway. And then at 1, he has another appointment to... do something. And then, in between all of that, we have to go see the surgeon that did his hernia repair for that follow up, and we're hoping to take him to see the docs and nurses in the ICU.

Busy day ahead.

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update

We went to see the pediatrician on Monday.
Aiden is growing like a (small) weed.
He is 12lbs, 13oz, and 62 cms long.

We, thankfully, made it to the appointment on time. We left later than we were planning to leave, so I was expecting to get there late.

The doctor looked at him, poked at the shunt a bit (Ewww.), measured his head, and told us that everything looks good and to come back in July for an MRI/follow up.

And then we left.

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Dear SickKids,

Early appointment is EARLY.

No love,
Aiden and his parents.

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Oh!

I forgot to mention... As of Tuesday, Aiden (plus one diaper, and a t-shirt) weighs 12lbs, 4oz.  And he's 63 cms (24.8 in.) long.  (According to the people at the appointment, he's "slender, tall and strong"... According to us, he's destined to look like Conan.)

Thought of the day:  Why do we use centimeters to measure small children?  Inches make much more sense.  And grams!  Who understands grams?

well.

I think I should look into taking some sort of "blog writing" class.  I never know what to write about; our lives are pretty mundane.

We took Aiden to his neonatal follow-up appointment on Tuesday.  There was an RN, speech pathologist, occupational therapist, nursing student, and a physiotherapist there to see him and assess if he needs any "extra help" as far as their specialties go.  They were all super impressed with him, and all of his accomplishments.  He's doing quite a bit of stuff that other 4 month old babies are doing, and the only suggestion they had was to make sure he gets lots of tummy time, and to hold him a certain way so that his shoulders are pulled forward, so that it's easier for him to bring his hands together/swipe at toys above him.

Next week, he has to go for a follow-up hearing test.  We have to keep him asleep throughout the whole hour long test.  This should be interesting...

The best medicine...

Aiden laughed for the first time tonight!
(Now we're all acting like idiots to get him to laugh again.)

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/thumbs up!

Aiden rolled over for the first time tonight!

Doctor's update

Aiden met with his pediatrician today for the first time since he had the shunt put in.  Everything looks good.  He's comfortably in the 10th percentile for his height and weight (59 cms tall, and 11 lbs, 6 oz).  His head measured at 43cms, which is back on track with how it was growing before the hydrocephalus.