Going back a couple weeks...
I had the best Valentine's day this year.. My son gave me the gift of his heart. We met with the Cardiologist on Valentine's day and he said the fluid around his heart was minimal enough that we no longer have to have weekly echos. We instead can have them every 3 months from here on out. Many of you would think having echos every 3 months is not something to celebrate but this is a welcome relief to our busy weekly Dr. schedule. Peyton gave me the gift of being an exceptional big sister, going to Coleson's visit with him, doing all the routine stuff like Blood Pressure, weight, heart listening, etc. right along side him. My husband surprised me with an early Valentine's "Grown Up" dinner of Sushi and a movie (America Hustler). Rachel stayed with the kids all evening.
We received more good news over the past few BMT Dr. visits in that we are continuing to taper the Steroids and CSA, his blood pressure is under control with the new dose of Amlodipine and his Magnesium is finally in the middle of the range. I have increased his oral Magnesium with veracity in hopes we can discontinue the nightly IV magnesium. We reduced the IV dose to 800mg this week and I am really hoping that in a week or 2 Dr. Douglas will stop them altogether. He should be off CSA by March 20th and that is what depletes the Magnesium in the first place. He's currently at 50% of his original dose. He will need another dose of IVIG probably next week though and I hope that too will be his last. I can't wait to get him off all these meds, get his central line taken out (replaced by a port) and get this kid in the pool and more importantly stop the weekly dressing changes which is ripping off a huge sticky bandage off his hairy little chest and under arm area. We have been trying to swim when he naps because he so wants to swim...
Paul did well at the horse show despite riding very little this past year. He took Grand Champion in one of his classes, catapulting him out of "Rooky" status. He is now a Novice. His trainer Crystal has been amazing support for him this past year and obviously has done great work with his horse, Rafiko or rather "Every Chic's Dream" (his show name which Paul just loves especially when it appears right under his own name!).
Aggie, Beth (Step mom and step sister) and Rachel's sister Mina just left after a short visit with us. It was nice of Beth to want to make the trip out here to see her niece and nephew. For those of you who don't know she has Muscular Dystrophy, another inherited disorder, and traveling is not easy on her. Since we didn't make it home in the past year to see her, she came out to see us. She and Coleson have so much in common now.
My good friend's mother, Connie, has been sitting with the kids on weekends/nights so I can catch up on "life" and I was able to put together a calendar of pics from the past year. It is amazing to see Coleson change from pre-BMT, to during BMT to post BMT and to post, post BMT. He went from dark blond straight hair to bald to curly dark hair. It was also amazing to see how "sick" he looked after BMT or rather how healthy he looks now. I didn't recognize it at the time or perhaps I didn't want to recognize it at the time, but now I can clearly see how tired and worn out he was in August, September, October, etc. A BMT is one of the toughest procedures a body can take and not all of them do, I am fortunate that Coleson did. I keep my friend's who were not so lucky in my thoughts every day.
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