Greetings one and all. Where to begin? Let me start off by letting you know that overall Thaddeus is doing well. He is walking and talking up a storm. He was late to start walking, and is a bit behind his age, but he doesn't let that slow him down. Birth to three tested him and found that he has caught up in the other physical development areas. So over all he is a little behind yet, but not as far as he was at the last testing. He is doing very well cognitively. They had a hard time testing him because he kept getting help from Quintin and Sebastian, but in their defense he did ask for it. He is using very basic sentences. His favorite is "Help me." This is not his only sentence, however. In fact he came up with a three worder just today while we were in the waiting room of Children's Hospital. I made a tower of duplo blocks for him. He knocked it off of the table and looked at me and said "Tower go away." So if things are going so swimmingly, then why am I in the surgery waiting room at Children's Hospital right now? His O2 numbers have taken a small dip. The docs would prefer his numbers be in the low 80's. Thaddeus' have normally been in the high 70's. That was OK until some of the tests started to come back in the low 70's. They thought that perhaps he had a narrowing of an artery that was not letting enough blood flow into the lungs. There were a few other possibilities as well. The biggest thing was not so much the numbers, but not knowing what was going on. So they decided that now was a good time to do some tests. A few hours ago they sedated him and did another echo cardiogram. (Like an ultrasound just on the heart.) They also went in from the thigh and the neck. They injected die, checked his pressures and took some videos of where the blood was going. They found several things. They did find that one of the arteries was getting stretched out lengthwise which was making it a bit narrow width wise. The bad news is that this particular artery does not respond well to angioplasty (ballooning it bigger to stretch it out width wise). The good thing is that this artery is in a spot that makes it easy for a surgeon to get to. They could have put a stint in it to force it open, but this would not grow with him and would also be in the way of the next surgery. They decided to leave it alone and let the surgeon deal with it when Thaddeus has his next surgery. They did NOT find any collateral arteries. These are extra arteries that the body sometimes makes that lets the blood skip going to the lungs. What they did find was something similar. His body is stretching out some of the passage ways INSIDE the lungs. This is bad because it lets some of the blood flow so quickly that it doesn't take time to go through the air sacs and actually take on any oxygen. Three of the four sectors of the lungs are doing OK, but the fourth is not doing much to oxygenate the blood. Normally your body doesn't let this happen because as the blood passes through the liver on the way to the lungs, the liver puts something in the blood that stops these "freeways", if you will, from forming. However; in Thaddeus' body right now, the blood is NOT going through the liver on the way to the lungs, it goes right to the lungs. So, the blood doesn't get this additive. This happens in about 20% of the heart kids. This problem takes care of itself after the third surgery because then the blood will pass through the liver on the way to the lungs. So, they didn't do anything about this right now either. However, this does make them want to do the third open heart surgery sooner rather than latter. We had been told that the surgery might be in the Summer of 2014. Now they are thinking more along the lines of the Spring or Summer of 2013. We will also have to be diligent this cold and flu season doing what we can to keep him germ free. This may also have an impact as we continue to search for day care for Thaddeus and Quintin the two days a week Dede teaches. We will also continue to keep an eye on his color and his stamina. These will be our first indicators that the surgery needs to be soon. The doctors also noticed that when Thaddeus breaths, there is a bit of a hitch, or stoppage. This made his pressures jump around. As such, we will be going to the ear, nose, and throat doctor to have a follow up on his vocal chord paralysis. Despite all of these things going on on the inside, on the outside, he is a happy, active, talkative charmer. (He made a few more nurse girlfriends today.)
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