PRAISE GOD!

Sorry for the length here, but for those of you who are interested in the details:

In case you haven't already heard, we got a great report yesterday at Anna's cardiologist appointment! Thank you all for all of your kind words and prayers! He does not want to see her back again until this time next year (unless she starts showing symptoms of any problems, which he does not expect to happen). YEA!!!! I love Dr. McMahon, but has taken me a long time to get to this point. I think the reason for this is mostly my fault and totally not anything he did. I was in such denial at our first appointment with him when Anna was only a couple of weeks old that I took his blountness to be a little raw on a mom of a child with a heart condition. As we have been to see him many times now, I have realized that it is his blountness that I totally appreciate since we are dealing with a potentially very serious problem. Just to give you a glimpse into what our visits are like: they take us back the first time to weigh, measure, and get an EKG. I thought the EKG would be awful this time around b/c she is now so aware of what is going on, but she was such a big girl and was so still; we then wait again until they call us back to this tiny little exam room that is taken up mostly by a huge Echo/ultrasound type machine; we get her undressed again and he watches her as she interacts with us, listens to her heart, feels her chest with his bare hands, then he lubes her up and scans her little chest and abdomen with the wand to see her heart from every angle possible. During all of this he never really says anything or talks much except small talk with us and her about how she's been growing/developing: does she act "normal" (whatever that means), has she had any other health concerns, etc. During all of this, Anna did so well and just talked to him (me having to translate, of course) - the whole time thinking, I hope they a few tricks up their sleeves when she decides she's had enough. Then he flips the lights on and says, "well . . ." and gets straight to the point! Fortunately, this time, he said that the measurements, pictures, and EKG all looked better than this time last year and that she was apparently "growing" into her abnormal valve!

On another note, as I said the other day, we did take MMC with us this time. I tried for several days to prepare her for what they would be doing to Anna and what she would see, hear, smell, feel, etc. (yes, my nursing days were coming back to me). She kept telling me that she did not want to go, but that she wasn't scared! We picked them both up from school and MMC did not say 2 words the whole trip to Bham. Sam and I couldn't decide if she was tired, getting sick, nervous, scared, or what! Well, we decided it must have been a little fear b/c when we went into the exam room she was in Sam's lap, but would did not want to watch what they were doing to Anna. We finally got her to turn around and see that it was ok and that Anna was not being hurt. She actually had asked me in one of the conversations prior to yesterday, "Is the doctor going to go inside and touch her heart?" Poor thing - that was how her sweet, innocent, 4 year old mind had processed it all! But, as soon as we were done and walked out of the exam room, her whole attitude and demeanor changed and she was her normal self (again, whatever that may be).

Needless to say, we had a long and tiring day, but in the end, it was another GREAT day!