Home Again

Sleepy, but happy to be heading home!

We were discharged and able to head home on Friday and oh is it so nice to be back!  While we love all the fabulous people who take such great care and give such great attention to our Miss Sloan at UofM Motts, it's amazing how quickly you fall back into old hospital habits even during just a quick 2 day stay (losing track of time/which day it is, making beds out of what's available - for Kyle that was a yoga mat on the floor, staff coming in to take vitals on Sloan every few hours...whether she was sleeping or not).  So needless to say, we are all happy to be home and back in our own beds and on our own schedules.

So here is the results of Sloan's cath procedure.  Dr Armstrong was successful in getting access to Sloan's aortic arch and ballooning the exact space they suspected narrowing (where they did the original repair).  While in there, they also found that her heart had started to grow some additional vessels, which were not needed, so they coiled these off.  We don't want Sloan's one ventricle working to pump blood to these additional vessels when, with Sloan's heart, they are not needed.  They also just went in and took a good look at Sloan's entire heart to make sure all looks ok in other areas as well.  Nothing else was found from their research.

As for our path forward from here, we just continue to watch & monitor her arch.  If her arch grows as she grows, they don't suspect they will have a narrowing issue again.  If it doesn't grow with her, then we'll have to discuss other options (another trip to the cath lab or potential surgery).  Our hope, and prayer, is that this will resolve the issue long term and we don't have to worry about things in the future for this.  But as we do with everything for Sloan, we take things one day at a time, enjoy every moment together and worry about things as we need to.

Thanks for all who have been thinking and praying for Sloan.  This little hiccup was definitely not suspected or wanted.  But we feel fortunate that they found it early and were able to take care of it quickly.

As each day passes Sloan is more and more back to herself.  As I've said before, her resiliency amazes me.  She's one strong little lady!

Just out of the cath lab and still really groggy.  Entry points were
in her neck & groin area

Finally got her to take a much needed nap

Starting to feel better around dinner time that night

Happy to have clothes on and be one step closer to getting out of here!

Ready to go home

Ten Months Old, Big Brother Turns Three, Thanksgiving and a Cardio Update

Updates, updates and more updates....wow am I behind!  The past month has been pretty active, here are the highlights:

Sloan's Ten Month Stats:

- Weight & Height: 21lbs, 8oz.  29.61 inches

- Milestones/Personality: 

+ She is on the move!  Pulling up on furniture and crawling up stairs.  She barely wants to be held any longer, rather be on the floor

+ Another tooth has come in on the bottom - that makes a 7 teeth in total at 10 months

+ She's still a talker...says bye bye, mama, baby and has one of the loudest screeches you'll ever hear!

+ We were officially discharged from therapy!  Sloan scored right on target and they were very happy with her progress

Kisses for the baby

Crawling up the stairs

Big Brother Turns Three:

One Nov 22nd big brother Drake turned three years old!  We had a carnival themed party for him and he had a BLAST.  Sloan also had a lot of fun seeing some new faces and getting lots of attention.  Drake's favorite part of his party...the bounce house!

Drake's Big Top - love his face (hah)

The bounce house...his favorite!

Thanksgiving:

Aunt Vicki, Uncle Peter and cousin Aiden came up from Atlanta for Thanksgiving so Sloan was able to get some extra attention and love.  Drake was on cloud nine with Aiden around.  I think he asked for Aiden every morning when he woke up.  It was so nice to spend time with them and the rest of the family and to let the cousins all interact together.  

Cardio Update:

We headed up to UofM this past Monday 12/2 for our standard check up.  They wanted to pay close attention to Sloan's aortic arch, that they have been watching, so concentrated on that during the echo.  They found that her pressures were measuring differently than last time and when they took her blood pressure they also noted that there was a difference between her blood pressure in her arm and in her leg.  Both of these are signs that there is some narrowing in her aortic arch.  Dr Armstrong said that in babies with a defect like Sloan has (hypoplastic aortic arch - this is one of her defects) that 10% of the time there can be scar tissue that forms when they do the repair which causes narrowing.  This is what they are suspecting but they cannot be sure until they go in and take a look.  So we are back today (as I write) for a cath.  Basically they are hoping that they can go in, take a good look and if there is narrowing they can balloon the arch to open it back up.  If that doesn't work, then we will be talking about another potential surgery to fix this issue.  You wouldn't know there is a thing going on with her, which I guess is good, as she looks great, has good energy and is acting like her same old self!

We'll keep you posted on how the cath goes and what our path forward is from here.  Our hope is that they just need to go in and balloon and we are back on track!

At the hotel, practicing on Bear for tomorrow

Telling her goodnight and we love her before
she's off to the cath lab