So today was my follow-up appointment with Dr. Cuneo, a very well known Pediatric Cardiologist that specializes on fetal cases of CHD's. In addition to seeing and working with patients; she is also on the board of directors of the Hope Children's Heart Institute. Like Dr. Ilbawi, I can't say enough nice things about her.
Again, the appointment started out late, emergency cases had to be squeezed in ahead of myself and other patients; but I'm starting to get immune to this - after all, I like the fact that I don't find myself being the emergency that is being rushed ahead of others. Either way, once it was our turn, my mother and I went back with the Tech who actually worked with me on the day that we got the HLHS diagnosis and she started the echo. It is quite clear that Olivia is growing nicely, everything about her is bigger and easier to make out during the ultrasounds. She was also in the perfect position for them to view her heart from all angles without any additional proding.
That's not to say that Olivia didn't put up a fight, we watched as she jabbed and kicked at the pressure of the probe being applied to my stomach. Shortly after we were underway, Dr. Cuneo came in to review the scan and made a point of introducing herself to my Mom and pointing out all the anatomy of Olivia's heart for my mom to visualize as they continued. Dr. Cuneo gave us the thumbs up, blood flow looks good throughout and the heart is pumping along quite nicely.
After the scan, my parents (Brian couldn't make the appointment because of work constraints) and I were able to sit and discuss all my questions and concerns that I still had with Dr. Cuneo and her nurse Janette. Really I did all the questions and Dr. Cuneo answered - my parents sat back and just soaked in the info as it came. The point was - after the appointment which was filled with nothing but good news about Olivia's continued development; Dr. Cuneo still sat there with us for a few minutes to talk about holiday traditions and family plans for Christmas.
Her sweet warm approach just makes everyone feel so at ease, you almost forget that you're at the doctor's and think it's more like catching up with a friend over coffee. No doubt, there is still serious information being discussed, but she has ended each visit with an expectation of Brian and I to make sure we call her personal cell if and when we ever have questions or concerns. We couldn't be happier to have a doctor like her looking over our daughter's best interests in the coming months.
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