The past 6 months have flown by and today was time for Dylan's next echo. He had another sedated echo, which was quite obvious right away that sedated was the only way they would get an echo today. Anyone who has been around him knows that if you aren't in his immediate family and touch him, he's not happy at all. Even having the doctor listen to his heart with the stethoscope can be a challenge. Although I will add that if I'm not around, he tends to be a little happier with other people.
Late yesterday afternoon I had gotten a call from the hospital telling me that Dylan's cardiologist was quite sick and would be unable to be there tomorrow but recommended keeping the echo since they were pretty booked up and it would probably be into January before we could get him in for another. Since Russ had taken the day off of work for it anyway, we decided that would be best and scheduled an appointment to meet with the doctor on Tuesday. Just after they started with the echo, one of the nurses stuck her head in and said that his doctor would actually be in today and to make sure we didn't leave without talking to him.
They do an iv for the sedation so they can give the medicine to them easier and give them a little more if they need it. Dylan was very unhappy when we laid him on the exam table so they could start the iv. He wasn't happy with being touched. When the iv needle poked him, his cry didn't change at all from his crying that they were touching him. When they left the room, he stopped crying briefly. Then started up again because he didn't like the little foam board thing they had taped to his hand to help keep him from pulling out the iv. After the echo when he had become conscious enough to drink a bit of apple juice, he was very good and held very still for the nurse to take the tape off to remove the iv. Until she got the foam board off. That's all he really wanted off. He didn't want her to touch him after she had the board off.
It has actually been somewhat entertaining to watch how wobbly Dylan has been after his sedation. When we were in the room waiting for the doctor to come in he really wanted us to let him try to walk around. We knew he wasn't quite ready for that. Russ did let him try to crawl where he proceeded to crawl right into the wall then say, "Uh-oh," just before doing a rolling fall. After getting to my parent's house (thanks mom for letting the others sleep over and watching them for us during the echo!) he would try to walk a bit then fall down then try to stand up only to fall again. Didn't take long until he was a little more steady though.
Anyway, when Dr. M came in, he told us that everything looks good. His heart function is normal. His conduit, as always is a little leaky (he said about medium leak) and slightly narrow, but functioning well. We go back in another 6 months. In the past he hasn't given a time-frame of how long he thinks we can go before he needs to have his conduit replaced. Today he said he would like to try to get Dylan to at least 3 before replacing it. I had been almost expecting him to say that it would be time really soon for that surgery so it was really nice to hear 3. That's right in the middle of the average age that Dylan's surgeon had told us he typically sees for the time when they need the second surgery (he said between 2 and 4, some earlier, some later). Hopefully he'll be able to go even longer, but it's nice to think of going at least another year and a half.
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