Reality Check

I subscribe to the newspaper. Which makes me think of the Mark Twain saying, "If you don't read the newspaper you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper you're misinformed." But I digress. In this morning's paper there was an obituary of a man who is the same age as Russ. The obituary stated that this man was the oldest survivor of Truncus Arteriosus type IV. I will admit that I had just kind of skimmed over the obituaries this morning until after my mom mentioned it by asking what type Dylan has. (He has type II.) I think Russ would have been happier had I not mentioned the obituary to him.

As a parent of a child with Truncus Arteriosus, reading an obit of a young man who had it isn't always a pleasant thing to read. Dylan is doing well enough that it's easy to forget that problems can (and do) arise in children and adults with CHD's. When I was changing my calendar over to November, I thought how had Dylan's cardiologist wanted him back in 6 months from his last echo instead of 9 that he would be going back this month. And how nice it is to not have to go back for another three more months. Mostly because it's nice to go longer without having that worry that this time the doctor will say that it looks like he'll need more surgery. It was a nice relief after his MRI to be told that everything looked good and he wouldn't need the cath like they thought he did.

I have read about a few babies with Truncus recently where things haven't gone so well. Makes me realize more how things could have gone wrong with Dylan's surgery and recovery. I think of his surgeon telling us that with his Coarctation of the Aorta in addition to his Truncus that the chances of him surviving that initial surgery was between 70 and 80%. What I mostly heard there was the 20-30% chance of not surviving it. I feel very blessed and lucky with how smoothly things went. I sometimes think of how one nurse said to us, "You will soon realize that you will be out of here a lot sooner than some of the others in here." And it was true.

I guess in the end, all I can really do is hope and pray and have faith that Dylan will continue to do well and that his next surgery (hopefully long in the future) will go even more smoothly than the first. And also pray for other children and adults going through the same things, as I hope others do the same for us.