Echo of Hope

Follow up echo and ultrasound this morning. Danger was feeling shy (just like his daddy…right) so no good pictures today. He was very active. I just started to feel him move last Thursday and it was pretty cool to see him punch and feel it at the same time. Mike even got to feel his first mae geri. Danger is certainly starting to get the reps in.

Heart wise, things are looking as good as they could at this point, but there’s still a lot of uncertainty and hurdles to jump coming up next.

The Good:

• The left ventricle pumps like a ’91 slam dunkin’ Dee Brown. We have biphasic ventricular function. (For all you non med folks out there, like us before this morning, this means that the LV is relaxing and letting blood in smoothly. This is VIP.)
• The mitral valve leakage has stopped!
• The aortic valve is wide open and there’s still a “large jet of flow” across the valve.
• Unlike before, the blood is flowing in all the right directions. In the in doors. Out the out doors
• Doctor’s Tworetzky’s comments, “All looks as good as it could at this point.”

The Bad:

• There’s scar tissue in the left ventricle. While this was expected – all babies who have this surgery have some scar tissue in the LV – at this point it is impossible to tell what effect this will have. In some cases it can restrict growth. In others, the LV will continue to grow even with the damaged tissue. Coin toss.
• The aortic valve is still leaking. This was also still expected at this point. Usually, this works itself out on its own, but hasn’t yet.

The Unknown:

• Will the stenosis of the aortic valve come back? Something caused the valve to close up in the first place. Something in Danger’s genes said, “Close, valve. Close.” Is it still sending these signals? Who knows. It happens sometimes.
• Will the left ventricle grow? Doesn’t need to be perfect, but we need growth for a chance at a two ventricle heart.

We still don’t know which way the Plinko chip will fall. As we get closer to birth, we’ll know more from echoes and ultrasounds as we go, but even if it looks good, we have to see what the little heart wants to do when the training wheels come off.

Doctor’s orders: wait and see. Cross fingers.