Follow up

A few days ago I posted about Joshua's latest appointment.  The doctor mentioned they had seen a potential problem in the echo & wanted to compare it with his previous echo before coming to any conclusions with Joshua's condition.  As it turns out, the leak that they had found in the echo and were concerned with, was a leak that has been there all along.

Josh had a severe leak of the tricuspid valve as a baby.  Dr. Azakie was able to fix it quite well (which is great because valve repairs aren't always successful apparently).   After the repair there was still a "trivial leak" as Dr. Rivera referred to it.  But it's something he's kept his eye on over the years & hasn't worsened.  Our new doctor, Dr. Tyndell, wasn't aware of the leak.  So his communication to me somewhat scared me.  He went into the whole process of leaks and the serious problems they present.  Had I been thinking clearly I would have mentioned the nature of the leak I was aware of & it may have saved me a bit of worry to discuss it further right then and there.  But at the time of our visit Dr. Tyndell wasn't yet aware of the extent of the leak, he was simply relaying the tech's finding to me.
So it was a bit of a scare hearing the 'leak speech' and not yet knowing its severity, but everything is just fine.

I actually sat here the night of his appointment and thought about it...I realized that Josh wakes up at 7am, goes to school for 6 hours, comes home and plays hard until he falls asleep at about 9pm each night.  I had to be logical and not get worked up thinking, "what if?"....he certainly wouldn't be able to keep up if his health was declining again.

Dr. Tyndell also relayed to me that his function actually looks slightly improved from his last echo, so that's always great to hear.  I sure hope we can keep moving in this direction.  To be honest, I keep thinking back to how he was hospitalized the first week of December the previous two years.  It's silly to think it's going to happen 3 years in a row, but I sure hope we can forgo the set back this time around.

In school news...we are really excited, this week one of Josh's buddies from church was placed in his class at school!  I am so relieved with the way this year is shaping up for Josh.  His teacher is amazing, he loves her, he loves school (which I NEVER thought I'd say), he has several good friends at school & he comes home with a big smile on his face everyday!  I know lots of kids have a smile on their face after school, but compare this to last year, it's a miracle.
Good things in store for my boy!