18 Month Cardiology Report

So yes, 2 blogs in under a week. Aren’t you excited?

Actually, this one is delinquent too. We saw the cardiologist a little over 2 weeks ago for David’s 18 month checkup, but I didn’t want to post this before I posted the one for Christmas, and I was being lazy about posting that one. Don’t worry though, on the day when we learn that he has been miraculously healed, you will all be informed before midnight.

In truth, there continues to be not much to report. Which is good. David’s growth path still appears to be tracking right along the 5% curve with no material deviations. It’s actually funny to see David next to other kids his age. One of Christy’s friends has a boy who is a couple months younger than David, and he’s at least 3” taller and noticeably heavier. The doctors have always told us to expect that, but it’s just strange to have the difference be THAT pronounced. Anyway, the doctor said everything looked and sounded good.

We asked him whether he expected the next surgery to be closer to 3 years old or 5 years old - he said much closer to 3 than to 5. We also asked him if there’s any possible reason that the TCH people would want to hospitalize him when he goes back there for his 1-year-post-glenn checkup. He said definitely not (TCH people, I’m looking at you - we’re not staying this time). They actually have not contacted us yet about going back, and I don’t plan on rocking the boat until they do. Dr. Brumund said it was actually a little odd for them to want to see him before we all start getting ready for surgery #3, so I figure we will be ok without them. If we haven’t heard from them by spring, we will probably just take a weekend and go hang out with our friends in Houston.

This visit also featured David’s semi-annual echo-cardiogram. Everything still looks beautiful there as well. David’s aorta is growing “beautifully”, his tricuspid valve (between the remaining ventricle and the right atrium) is still holding up really well, and the pressure drop across the place where the reconstructed aorta meets the natural one is basically negligible. All of which means that David is still doing really well.

Otherwise, we’re still having a blast, and David is still growing and getting smarter and more fun every day. He’s learning to talk a little bit, and he’s getting really good at communicating what he wants even when he doesn’t know what the words are. The other day he wanted some goldfish (the little cheesy cracker things), so he opened one of his books to a picture of a fish, pointed to it emphatically, then went over and pointed at the pantry. I kinda worry that his linguistic skills might be a little behind due to his inventiveness with non-verbal communication, but I guess that can’t be all bad. He still loves outside, loves other kids and people (don’t know where he got that - it wasn’t from me), and has started to love having books read to him. He also eats like a pig. Christy has taken to just leaving food within his reach all the time so that he can have an all-day buffet. I need to get rich soon, cause if he gets any bigger my food bill is going to put me in the poor house.

So that’s about it. I’ll try to be more regular about these things and to remember to let the world know about interesting things when David does them. But frankly, I’m having too much fun to stop and write when I can just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Yes, we do in fact eat straight peanut butter with a spoon.

Christmas!

Christmas less than a month past, and here I am writing David’s next blog post! Yay me!

As one might imagine, the Christmas season is busy and eventful, and this year wasn’t much different. It was, however, David’s first year to really notice what’s going on. He’s a pretty social kid, so he LOVES being at gathering where he can make himself the center of attention. Now that I think about it, that was probably his favorite thing about Christmas - all of the people who doted on him for a month straight.

So anyway, we spent lots of time having Christmas at various places with various people:

First up was the Patin Christmas party at mom’s house with that side of my family. They are always hard to nail down and corral into one location at one time, so every year mom makes them come to her house a couple weeks before Christmas so that she can at least see everyone once. As would become a recurring theme, David was loved by all and David acquired toys. At this one, nobody was supposed to get him anything, but alas, such a demand fell on deaf ears. The standout present from this gathering was the toy Cars keys that he got with the car noise making keychain. He likes car noises, he definitely takes his boy-dom seriously.

For the next couple of days after that party, my dad was in town from Colorado. So David spent a lot of time hanging with Grandpa. Various Google baby clothes were procured along with a sweet bean bag chair that later came in the mail. Good times were had by all.

Next, 2 days before Christmas (if I recall correctly), was Christmas with Christy’s brother and sister-in-law who came to town for an afternoon from Vacherie. Among the items of import gained at this small gathering was David’s new John Deere steering wheel thingy. Since it is both a steering wheel and makes noise, he loves it. I don’t think we’ve been allowed to put that one in the rotation of living room toys yet, because he demands to have it out all the time.

Christmas day lunch brought us to Christy’s mom’s house for presents and food, and David was not disappointed with the gifts received. At this stop, he got what might very well be his favorite toy-based gift of the year - a fisher-price gear thingy. It is pretty cool, and I very much appreciate the accommodation of David’s inherent nerd character in giving him an engineering toy. This child has no chance.

After lunch, we went home for a nap, then it was off to my mom’s house for Christmas evening coffee, dessert, and more presenting with David. His primary acquisition at mom’s house was a David-sized chair with his name embroidered. The kids of the family that we stay with in Houston have these, and David loved them last time we were there, so we kinda figured he’d like one for himself. We have not been surprised at his enjoyment. He climbs on it, watches his baby can read videos from it, and uses it as a stepping stool to get on to the couch. Plus, it’s red. When you’re 18 months old, everything red is awesome.

Lastly was Christmas with my paternal grandma, aunt, and uncle. Christy made dinner (best meal of Christmas, btw) which we ate and then had dessert and more presents. David returned home with a tricycle from great-grandma. Which he loves. Luckily he gets most of his tricycling done with mom during the day. It was also my first experience putting together a toy for David. It was surprisingly not bad, hopefully future endeavors will be just as easy.

So David’s first “real” Christmas was a success. In the end we managed to have minimal incursions of excessive toys and lots of David attention. Which, of course, is really the most important thing.

Note on downloading pictures from the albums...

It came to my attention this morning, that with the integration of Google+ and Picasa, anyone not signed up for Google+ cannot download full size pictures from the permalinks on the side.  So, for anyone who wants to download pictures, you have 2 options:


1.  Sign up for Google+.
2.  When you go to the permalinks, right click on the link that you want, and select the option to copy the URL to the clipboard (in chrome it's "Copy Link Address", in Firefox it's "Copy Link Location", and in Internet Explorer it's "Copy Shortcut").  Then, go to the address bar at the top of the browser, delete whatever is there and paste that link into the address bar (either Ctrl-V or right click and select "Paste").  Immediately after that address, type "?noredirect=1", except without the quotes.  Now hit return or click go, and you should be brought to the old Picasa view of the album.  From Picasa, you should be able to download full size pictures.


This is all an apparent attempt by Google to lock people into using Google+ for everything, which is pretty crappy in my opinion.  I guess they've gotten rid of that whole "Don't be evil" thing.