Sunshine Continues to Follow Olivia

First - Happy Birthday Olivia!  Mommy's been slacking a bit on posting for your monthly bdays, but Happy 22 Months Little Girl.  (sniff, sniff about the little girl part)  You get more fun and interactive every day; I won't emphasize how stubborn and ornery you can get now too.  (wink)

Now, for the meat of the it, yesterday was a cardiology appointment.  Nothing prompted it, but Brian and I felt like it had been four months since our last one and were always told not to consider going more than three months without being seen until after the Fontan.  I think we were expecting an echo which made us sort of dread the whole process, but overall were pleasantly surprised.  As much as I didn't particularly care for the nurse assigned to check us in, she showed us to the exam room, brought me a pulse ox and the bp monitor and let me do all the vitals in the room without her being there.  Brian calmed Olivia as much as he could since she had a meltdown outside even making a visual with the building; and I did the mean dirty work by hooking her up to the machines and taking the data.  Sats were anywhere from 87-89 and probably could have been a little higher had she not been having a fit every few minutes.  BP was high, unrealistically high given how angry she was at everyone.  Weight is over 27lbs, I didn't sit and do the kg to lb conversion.  Height is somewhere around 34 ish inches - but that's sketch because she did not like the height rod at all.

Other than that, doctors, nurses, OT came by to smile and wave and so long as they kept themselves outside the actual room and talked to us from the hallway, everything was fine.  Olivia blew them kisses, waved and pointed them away.  Once the doctor came in to actually listen, she lost her mind.  I still don't understand how they can listen to anything of importance on a screaming child - but hey more power to them.

The takeaway?  They want us on the calendar for the pre-Fontan Cath and it's up to us when we get it going, it could be tomorrow or four months from now.  There is currently NO urgency to any cath or surgery but she's essentially ready for the final show of the Fontan.  As a collective decision we as parents decided to wait out the cath until after cold/flu season (read: April) and I'm going to guess that she'll be teed up for the Fontan this summer.  I haven't decided how I feel about all of this yet, but I do know that I had a wicked headache/migraine with knots in my shoulders and neck and I felt amazing after the appointment.  I think when things have been going so well for so long you just naturally feel like your good luck is going to run out.  Fortunately that wasn't the case yesterday and we couldn't be more thankful.  Big sigh of relief from this Mommy.  

Olivia, I'm so proud of you and the little person you are becoming.  You're so independent and smart taking in everything and everyone.  Once again, Happy Birthday!

Love Always,

Mommy

Cardiology Appointment 1/26

Just a heads up, Little Miss has a card appointment today, it is supposed to be nothing more than a routine checkup and we'll see if they get an echo done on her.  We have absolutely no plans of them doing anything regarding sedation seeing as how last time was such a miserable failure.  Fingers crossed for a good appointment and with any luck I'll post again tonight or tomorrow morning.

Happy Thursday!

"She's Beautiful and SOO Healthy Looking"

Happy Belated New Years and all other holidays we skipped over!  Yep, it's been a minute as they say.

As for today's post, I had really planned on doing a photo update of what little Miss has been up to lately but a comment from a stranger this weekend while Liv and I were shopping at Target took precedence.  It was Saturday morning and we were out having Mommy/Daughter time so where were we to go?  Of course off to Target, one of Liv's very favorite stores because she normally gets to walk around and oooh and ahhh over all the aisles.

Being a Saturday morning, all the little ladies were out presenting their samples for the shoppers and as we strolled by one in particular she made eye contact with Olivia and just randomly said "My your daughter is beautiful and SOOO healthy looking"  I stopped, I looked at my little goofball smiling her best smile at this woman, looked at the woman who was probably a grandmother, said my thanks and we walked on.  But what a moment, I could have lost it right there in the frozen food section at target as Olivia was blowing kisses and waving bye bye to her new friend.

I could go on and on what a profound moment it was, but words just don't do it justice.  Olivia is who she is, a miracle every day.  "Precious" as her Nonna likes to refer to her.  I will say, in the midst of this moment, I know there's still at least one more surgery in Olivia's future and we have been so blessed thus far, but there's no telling what the future will look like.  I'm at peace with it, I love her every day like it's our last and the future will be what it will be.